
Qass. 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



\ , ^. >\ A 







/ 



THE 



/black¥ater chronicle 



A XARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION INTO 



THE LA:^D of CAjSTAAK, 



IN RANDOLPH COUNTY, VIRGINIA, 



A COUNTRY FLOWING WITH WILD ANIMALS, SUCH AS PANTHERS, 
BEARS, WOLVES, ELK, DEER, OTTER, BADGER, &c., &c., WITH 
INNUMERABLE TROUT— BY FIVE ADVENTUROUS GENTLE- 
MEN, WITHOUT ANY AID OF GOVERNMENT, AND SOLELY 
BY THEIR OWN RESOURCES, IN THE SUMMER OF 1851. 

Si[ " €!jt ClirkB nf (fiirnfnrk." 

"WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM LIFE BY STROTHER. 




c/ 



(ii^^^^^ 



1^ 



R E D F 1 E L D 

110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 
1853. 




f1 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, 

By J. S: REDFIELD, 

iu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 

Southern District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 
13 Chambers Srreet, N. Y. 



THE 



BLACKVATER CHRONICLE 



CHAPTEK I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

If the reader will take down the map of Virginia, 
and look at Randolph county, he will find that the 
Black water is a stream that makes down from the 
north into the Cheat river, some few miles below 
the point where that river is formed by the junc- 
tion of the Dry fork, the Laurel fork, and the Glade 
fork — the Shavers, or Great fork, falling in some 
miles below : all rising and running along the west- 
ern side of the Backbone of the Alleganies. 

The country embraced by these head-waters of 
the Cheat river is called "The Canaan" — a wilder- 
ness of broken and rugged mountains — its streams 
falling through deep clefts, or leaping down in great 
cataracts, into the Cheat, that sweeps the base of 
the Backbone. 



6 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

It is to the Blackwater, one among the largest of 
these streams of the Canaan, that we purpose to 
take the reader. If, therefore, his fancy urges him 
to the venture, let him come with us. All he has 
to do is to set himself down in his easy-chair, and 
lend us his ears. By the magic of this scroll we 
shall take him. 

This Blackwater (it should be called Amberwa- 
ter), and north source of the Cheat, rises high up on 
the western slope of the Backbone, directly across 
from the Fairfax stone — where the head-spring of 
the Potomac has its source on this the eastern side 
of the mountain ; and it is supposed that these head- 
waters of the two rivers are not more than some 
half a mile (or mile at most) apart. The Backbone, 
following a general course from north to south, here 
turns at almost a right-angle, and takes across to 
the eastward some fifteen miles, when it regains its 
former southerly direction, thus forming a zigzag 
in its course. At the point where it first makes the 
bend to the east, a large spur — apparently the Back- 
bone itself — keeps straight to the south, and butts 
down on the Cheat, at the distance of some ten or 
twelve miles. Between this large spur and the 
point where the Backbone bends to the south again, 
is contained the cove of mountains which is called 
the Canaan. This region of country is in the very 
highest range of the Alleganies, lying in the main 
some three thousand feet above the level of the sea. 



rNTRODIJCTORT. 7 

Until a fiew years past, the whole of the district 
embraced by the head-waters of the Potomac and 
the Cheat was as remote and inaccessible as any 
part of the long range of the Alleganies. ' But some 
few years ago, the state of Virginia constructed a 
graded road from Winchester to Parkersburg, which 
passes over the Backbone through the Potomac lim- 
its; and consequently this portion of the district 
has become opened out somewhat to the knowledge 
of the world, and has since been settled to a consid- 
erable extent. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad 
also passes near here — at a distance from the head- 
waters of the Potomac varying from ten to twenty 
miles. The railroad will bring all this region within 
a day's travel of the seaboard ; and as the country 
lies about the head of the Maryland glades — in 
themselves a source of attraction — and contains 
within its range many tracts of land of great fertility 
and beauty, it is not irrational to suppose that it 
will be cleared out and settled with rapidity. 

As it is, there is a good settlement around here 
already — the result, in the main, of the construc- 
tion of the Northwestern road. Long, however, be- 
fore this road was made, there was a Mr. Smith who 
pitched his tent in these wilds some fifty years or 
more ago, I am informed, and cleared out and im- 
proved a handsome estate for himself, lying along 
the Maryland shore of the Potomac, and containing 
some fifteen hundred acres of fine land of varied 



8 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

hill and dale. The Smiths are now gone, and the 
estate has passed into other hands. In the older 
times a tavern was kept here, for the accommoda- 
tion of the "few people who crossed these mountains. 
But when the northwestern road came by, the mar- 
vels of a good highway were made manifest in the 
increased travel, that soon became too great for the 
capabilities of the once-unfriended inn. About this 
period, a gentleman from the city of Washington, 
journeying this way to escape the heats of the sea- 
board, was so taken with the pleasant temperature 
of the air and the wild beauty of the mountains, 
that he bought the place — impelled somewhat 
thereto, no doubt, by the trout in the streams and 
the deer in the forests. Under his rule a new house 
was erected, large enough to hold a goodly compa- 
ny. This is the house — 'fair enough to look upon 
in its outside array, and comfortable enough within 
— that now stands imposing, not far away from the 
old one, on the brow of a lofty hill overlooking the 
Potomac. " Winston" the place is called — so called 
because the eighty-seventh milestone from Winches- 
ter is won when you reach its door. Edward Tow- 
ers keeps it — or did, when the Black water expedi- 
tion won the stone. Here, for some years past, ma- 
ny of our citizens, of both Virginia and Maryland, 
have been in the habit of resorting in the summer 
and fall months, to fish for trout, hunt the deer, 
shoot pheasants, wild turkeys, woodcock in their 



INTKODUCTORY. 



9 



season, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere of a 
country whose level is so high above the sea. 

The ride to this place over the Northwestern road 
is exquisitely delightful, and withal as easy as a 
ride can well be. You travel over a graded slate 
road — the perfection of a summer highway — engi- 
neered skilfully, and at but a low grade, through 
the gorges and defiles of these fine mountains, and, 
when crossing any of them, seeming to have been 
carried over purposely at those points where the 
scenery is of the grandest or most beautiful charac- 
ter. Take it altogether, for the excellence of the 
road, and the varied combinations of scenery that 
are ever presenting themselves to view, there is no 
route across the mountains anywhere that excels it. 
With a pair of good horses in a light carriage, you 
can speed along all the way as if you w^ere taking 
an evening drive about your home, even though 
your home be where the roads are the best in the 
land. And then, w^hat exhilaration of spirit is felt 
by you as you roll smoothlj^ along at the rate of 
some ten miles an hour, your horses scarcely stretch- 
ing a trace — seeming merely to keep out of the 
way of the wheels! — on one side of you a deep 
gorge, a thousand feet down, dark with hemlocks 
and firs, where a mountain-stream breaks its way to 
the sea ; above you, high-towering peaks and over- 
hanging cliffs, where the oak or stately fir has cast 
anchor, and held on for ages in defiance of all the 

1* 



10 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

storms of the Alleganies ; while before you, afar off, 
glittering in the sunshine, are seen in glimpses the 
green fields and meadows of some fair, luxuriant 
valley; and the whole horizon bounded by lofty 
mountains that seem to defy all approach, but which 
you at length wind your way through by some con- 
cealed cleft, the bed of a stream, with scarcely any 
more of obstruction than a bowling-green w^ould 
present to your glowing wheels. 

There are but few things more agreeably exciting 
to the spirits than a rapid drive through the coun- 
try on a good road. There are some who will not 
assent to this proposition ; but they are not to be 
deferred to in these matters of fastness^ and do not 
understand the philosophy of the human soul. " The 
power of agitation upon the spirits," says Dr. John- 
son, " is well known. Every man has felt his heart 
lightened by a rapid drive or a gallop on a swift 
horse." This might be only a little closet philoso- 
phy of the sturdy old despot of letters, maintained 
in theory but belied in practice, like our famous 
doctrine of state-rights here in Virginia ; but we 
have it on record that the rough old viking of our 
English literature considered it one of the prime fe- 
licities of his life to ride in a stage-coach, even at 
the rate of speed attainable in his day. If one of 
the soundest moral philosophers that any age or 
country has produced can be shown as both theo- 
retically and practically enforcing the happiness of 



INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 

rapid motion — at least to the extent that conld be 
achieved by an English stage-coach, and over the 
comparatively rude thoroughfares leading out of 
London a hundred j^ears ago — -ante Agamemnona^ 
that is, before M'Adam — how much more delight- 
ful must be the agitation of your spirits, and the 
consequent lightening of your heart, when the at- 
mosphere you breathe, as you drive smoothly along 
behind a pair of untiring thoroughbreds, is the very 
purest, and the scenes around you are among the 
grandest or most beautiful of a whole continent! 
And all this too, recollect, with a splendid craving 
all over you — feeling it even at your finger-ends — 
everywhere — for food: visions of venison-steaks, 
and hot rolls, and fresh summer* butter, made where 
the meadows are " with daisies pied," floating 
through 3^our crowded and hunger-enraptured brain 
— and with the certainty, too, all the while in your 
mind, that you can not apparently kill this craving 
for the time being with anything in the shape of a 
breakfast, dinner, supper, or what not, but it will 
be all powerful again upon you- in some three or 
four hours! — an appetite seemingly endowed with 
the quality of the phoenix, that out of its own ashes 
renews itself — 

"revives and flourishes, 



Like that self-begotten bird, 

In the Arabian woods embossed" — 

not surpassed by anything of the sort that we have 



12 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

on record — not by Sancho Fanza's, nor by Ritt- 
master Dngald Dalgetty's, nor yet that. of the migh- 
ty heroes of the Iliad — aptly to describe which the 
genius of Homer was only equal, when the divine 
old bard sings of it as the sacred rage of hunger. 

If any mortal of these sated days would wish 
fully to appreciate what this Homeric rage is, let 
him take this ride to the Alleganies ; and though 
he should be of a nobler spirit than Esau, yet will 
he in his inmost soul commiserate that poor devil 
for having sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 15 



CHAPTEK II. 

GETTING TNDEK WAY. 

•The stout earl of Northumberland 

A vow to God did make, 
His pleasure on the Scottish ground 
Three summer days to take." 

The stout Earl Percy, here alluded to, did take 
his pleasure on the Scottish ground — and how, all 
the world knows that has read the fine old ballad 
of " Chevy Chase." How the stout gentlemen, and 
also those who were none of the stoutest, who took 
their pleasure on the Black water, came off, hearken 
to the following chronicle, and you shall learn. 

It was toward the first of June last past, that a 
number of gentlemen, residing near each other, in 
a pleasant part of that rich valley vaunted to the 
world as tJie garden of Virghiia, and called by the 
people of the mountain-ranges back of it the land 
of Egfpt^ from the quantity of grain which it pro- 
daces, determined to make a pleasure expedition 
into the Allegany country, having it chiefly in view 
to harry its streams for trout. Accordingly, on one 
fine morning — it was on the last day of the univer- 



16 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

sally-lauded month of May — we gathered together, 
prepared as best we knew how for the expedition. 

It was at the pleasant country-dwelling of Mr. 
Peter Botecote, one of our number, that we made 
our rendezvous : — 

"And Wat of Harden came thither amain, 
And thither came John of Thirlestane, 
And thither came William of Deloraine" — 

and all the rest of us — men, dogs, and horses. 
Here, after some animated parley, and an early din- 
ner, it was resolved that we should forthwith take 
our departure, notwithstanding the strawberries that 
were ripe in the garden, and the cream that was 
abounding in the dairy, and what too was far more 
delaying, the fascination of our lady-hostess. Pleas- 
ant enough this bower of Botecote's ; but hope smiled 
its enchantments upon us far away, fr»om the very 
midst of the wild Alleganies, and our hearts were 
too much agog and all a-tiptoe with its illusions, to 
think of staying. The delirium of the mountains 
was upon us ; and so, amid the neighing and paw- 
ing of horses, the speeding to and fro of servants, 
the dancing eyes of children, and the wife's half- 
sorrowful smile as she committed her adventurous 
husband to the destiny of a two or three weeks' sep- 
aration, we wheeled into order, and took up the line 
of march. " Hey !"— " Get away !"— '' Ho !"— " Ha, 
you dog!" — whips flourishing, dogs barking — all 
the commotion that a country -gentleman's establish- 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 17 

ment could well get up ; every good spirit attend- 
ing, to say nothing of the high ones : thus we left 
the Botecote portals, and — 

"All the blue bonnets are over the border 1" 

We drove to Winchester, a town when George 
II. was king here in Virginia : not one of your re- 
cent cities, grown up to a hundred thousand people 
within the memory of men alive, but an old, time- 
honored town, of some five thousand souls, with re- 
membrances about it ; familiar to the footsteps of 
Thomas, the sixth Lord Fairfax, when he lived at 
Greenway court (some ten miles off), and held pow- 
er as lieutenant of the county of Frederick, hunted 
the boar, w^rote for " The Spectator," and set twenty 
covers daily at his table : famous, too, in our provin- 
cial history, as the military headquarters of Wash- 
ington during the war of '65 against the French for 
the possession of the western countr3^ Here, to 
this old border stronghold of the Dominion, where 
the dismantled ramparts of Fort Loudon still look 
down upon the town, we drove over night, a matter 
of some twenty miles, ready to make a more sus- 
tained movement the next morning on Winston — 
some eighty-seven miles distant, as already stated, 
on the j^orthwestern road. 

The expedition travelled in three light carriages, 
such as are commonly called wagons^ all tight and 
sound, freshly washed, oiled, and rubbed, and glit- 



18 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

tering in the sun ".like images :" eacli wagon drawn 
by a vigorous trotter in fine condition, and able on 
a good road easily to make such time as would have 
satisfied Dr. Johnson, even though his philosophy 
of happiness should have required a greater speed 
than ten miles an hour. We were five in all : the 
sixth didn't go, that gentleman having failed us by 
the way, owing to some anxieties he entertained 
about trusting himself so high up on the continent. 
But no matter; we were yet five. There was — 

Mr. Peter Botecote, generally called Butcut by 
his familiars — sometimes But; 

Mr. Guy Philips, the Master of the priory of St. 
Philips : hence familiarly the master, sometimes the 
Prior, and occasionally " the county Guy ;" 

Triptolemus Todd, Esq., our Murad the Unlucky, 
and sometimes Trip ; 

Doctor Adolphus Blandy, physician to the expe- 
dition : Galen he was called for short ; 

And the Signor Andante Strozzi, our artist, also 
amateur musician. 

Mr. Perry Winkle, jocosely called by his friends, 
in one syllable, PerryiDinMe^ is the name of the 
gentleman who didnH go — which we mention 
here that he may not altogether escape immor- 
tality — and would also give his likeness, were it 
not for a well-founded apprehension that it might 
too much divert the attention of the reader from 
our narrative. 



GETTING TINDER WAY. 19 

The array, it will be perceived from the naming, 
is somewhat imposing, and gives promise of some- 
thing to be done and said out of the common. 
Truly, this record of the performance need not fall 
short of the promise, if the ambitious chronicler 
can succeed, by any happy art, in anything like a 
history that shall be a just impress — an impress 
of the body and soul — of the expedition. Thucy d- 
ides hit it, in his narrative of The Sailing for 
Sicily, also in The Landing of Alcihiades at 
Athens; Livy, in that part of his twenty -first book 
which we 've got, and no doubt in the remainder 
of it, if we could only find it ; Segur, in the retreat 
from Moscow; Macaulay, in the landing of the 
prince of Orange, and the march on London; 
Voltaire's Charles the Twelfth, too, ought not to be 
passed over in this enumeration ; nor yet Sallust's 
little narrative of Catiline. Let us add another to 
the illustrious roll, by writing the Blackwater J^ar- 
rative up to the immortal standard. 

Deserted, then, by Mr. Perrywinkle, we were 
yet five in number ; all good men and true, and 
of unusually diversified character and appearance : 
none of us to be called old in years, but old enough 
in the ups and downs, and ins and outs of this world, 
having made "many hair-breadth 'scapes by flood 
and field," by town and country, by man and wo- 
man also, in our time — even tlie more youthful 
Triptolemus, who has killed in his time several 



20 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

good pointers in shooting partridges, and some few 
years ago shot himself in the right knee — which 
will account for his lameness in these pages. With- 
out mincing matters too much, we will speak it out 
freely, that we were all men of some mark and 
likelihood, as men go ; and although the world 
might not judge us (which it is our opinion it 
would make a great mistake in not doing) as " fit 
to stand by Caesar in a tented field," there can be 
no doubt that it would hold us all, if it had the 
honor of our acquaintance, as fit to sit by that 
" foremost man of all the world," at a dinner or a 
supper, at any rate. 

We will take the liberty of saying, however, 
with great modesty, and begging pardon of every- 
body, and especially of the old Eomans, that if 
" the mightiest Julius" had been along with us 
upon this expedition, he would have found the 
passage into the country of the Blackwater a far 
more fatiguing enterprise than any of his incur- 
sions into the countries of the AUobrogi, or E"ervii, 
or Acquitanii, or Boii, or any other of those out- 
siders, against whom the elegant and captivating 
greatest Koman marched. 

It will not be amiss here to mention, that we 
travelled upon our inroad very much after the 
fashion in which Caesar went upon his. Grave 
History has not thought it beneath her dignity to 
record how the great master of the Koman world 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 21 

went upon his depredations ; and it is one of lier 
condescensions for which we are very much obliged 
to her. It is therefore, we know, among other things 
of this elegant and all-accomplished subverter of the 
republic and founder of the fourth and last univer- 
sal empire, that he rode in a carriage upon his 
forays. This carriage was called a rJieda^ " a sort 
of gig or curricle," says a recent very distinguished 
authoiity, Mr. De Quincey, "a four-wheeled car- 
riage, and adapted to the conveyance of about half 
a ton." This, the reader will perceive, is in and 
about our modern wagon ; and we have no doubt, 
if the matter were fairly investigated, it would be 
ascertained that the rheda of the Eoman is the 
prototype of the wagon of the American : it 's a 
four-runner at any rate. Julius used this carriage, 
we are informed, because it enabled him to take 
with him the amount of equipment that was essen- 
tial to his elegant and patrician habits : his various 
mantles — for instance, the one he overcame the 
IS'ervii in, which he preserved and wore many 
years after in the city, and was the same in which 
the envious Casca made the rent, that Shakspere 
and Casca between them have made so immortal ; 
his bandboxes, in which he kept the wreaths he 
wore around his head, as our ladies do now on 
festival occasions — the ivy, the laurel, the oak 
wreaths, and what others I know not ; his bathing 
apparatus, brushes, soaps, &c. ; his unguents and 



22 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

perfumes, with the various ancient Roman balms 
for the cure of baldness. The rheda was adjusted 
to the convenient transportation of these essentials 
of an elegant Roman gentleman of that day : and 
so the wagon to the wants of the daintiest gentle- 
man of this. 

It will be perceived, therefore, that our expedi- 
tion has many points of resemblance to those so 
famous of the splendid Roman. It was depredatory 
in the first place. It combined, in the second, about 
an equal commingling of the luxurious and the rough- 
and-tumble. Thirdly : considering that it took the 
field about nineteen centuries later than Caesar's, 
there is a very remarkable resemblance between 
the vehicles used in both. Fourthly : in one single 
engagement, fought on the Blackwater, and which 
lasted only about two hours, no less than four hun- 
dred and ninety some odd of the enemy were slain, 
and what is more, fully a hundred of them eaten 
next thing to alive : and this, we take it, will com- 
pare with anything done in Gaul. Lastly : the wild 
tribes that infested the Alleganies, fled before our 
arms ; many a flying army of deer owed their lives 
to the mercy of the invaders ; the badgers and the 
otters • — a feeble people, yet sagacious and wary — 
we laid ourselves out to take by policy, that is en- 
trap them, as Osesar did the like people of Gaul ; 
and had not the fierce panthers, the rude bears, 
the prowling wolves, and the other warlike inhab- 



THE EXPEDITION DANCES A IIOllNPIPE. 25 

night, and fresli and fragrant everywhere is the 
morning. The forest-leaves are all washed clean as 
the waters of heaven can make them, and the gras- 
ses are more delicately green in their renewal. The 
rain-drops, not yet dried np, sparkle all over the 
forest, in the glittering sunshine, like beads of pearl. 
All nature, animate and inanimate — on four legs, 
two, or none — feels the heavenly influence of the 
hour. The woods are vocal with the rapturous voice 
of birds. The wild-flowers — the wild-rose and the 
wood-violet, the gorgeous laurel, and the sweet elder- 
bloom — in all their freshened glory, give their deli- 
cate perfumes to the liberal air, and their hues of 
heaven to the enraptured sight. The streams, some- 
times crossing our path, and sometimes flowing on 
by our side — seeming to go with us whichever way 
^ye go — flowing on adown the dell or by the rifted 
rock, and all embowered with shrubs and tangled 
vines : these sing their sweet songs tuneful to the 
ear, until at length, ecstasy — born of the niurmur- 
ing waters, the balm of the air, the glory of the 
wild-flowers, the warble of the birds, and the smooth 
velocity of your rheda — enters into the heart, and 
pervades your countenance with a radiance that is 
almost divine. 

Thus full of all joy that is born of summer and 
the mountain?, we speed on our way — to happiness 
and to Winston! On we drive, over the smooth 
road, through gorge, and dell, and valley, when l)y- 



26 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

and-by we ascend a mountain, winding up its side 
like the track of a snake, until we reach the top. 
Here a magnificent panorama of distant-blending 
valleys and niountains piled on mountains, breaks 
suddenly on our view ; and, seized with a shouting 
spirit of exultation — 

" We call a halt, and make a stand, 
And cry, 'St. George for merry England!'" — 

meaning thereby this all-hailed land of ours, which 
the patriotic reader will of course understand. 

The day is now some four hours old by the shad- 
ow ; and before yet the last echoes of our voices 
have died away in the hills and rocks around, a 
wayfarer, all in minstrel array bedight, walked in 
wearily among us. He called a halt, and made a 
stand, too, on the mountain's brow. This was a wan- 
dering Italian, with his hand-organ strapped to his 
back, who had ascended from the other side ; and 
it was not long before he had unburdened himself 
of his bread-winner, and given us a specimen of 
what his art could do. His instrument was a very 
good one, and our imaginations had by this time 
thrown around him an air of romance and poetry. 
Had we encountered him in the streets of a city, he 
would have been nothing more than an ordinary 
strolling minstrel to us ; but here, in the forest, his 
music struck upon the ear pleasantly enough, and 
brought to its aid much poetic association. It sound- 



THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 27 

ed of the days when the old harper begged his bread 
from door to door : and the hand-organ is already 
half-elevated into the harp, and he who turns it has 
a sonl alive to poetry and song. Happy power of 
illusion ! it is better than gold in gilding this bare 
life — this life so bare and hard to the pure reason, 
so full of charm to the imagination ! 

Thus idealizing the hand-organ and the very good- 
looking, rather handsome man, who turned it, we 
now left our wagons ; and, out in the road, and face 
to face, we hold friendly parley with the stranger. 
The wandering minstrel is a Neapolitan ; and the 
Signer Strozzi, our artist, glad of a chance to refresh 
himself with a little Italian, immediately enlarges 
upon the renowned city — its towers and palaces, 
the bay, the towns around, and the neighboring vol- 
cano lurid in the heavens. IS'ot unmindful of his 
country, there is moisture in the eye of the min- 
strel, and something very like a tear is on his cheek. 
There is something sympathetic in all show of feel- 
ing ; and when the prior of St. Philips repeated in 
feeling tones the song of the harper in Rokeby — 

"Wo came with war, and want with wo, 
And it was mine to undergo 
Each outrage of the rebel foe : • 

Can aught atone 
My fields laid vraste, my cot laid low? 

My harp alone ! 

"Ambition's dreams I've seen depart, 
Have rued of penury the smart, 



550 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

Have felt of love the venomed dart, 

When hope was flown ; 
Yet rests' one solace to my heart — 

My harp alone ! 

"Then o'er mountain, moor, and hill, 
My faithful harp, I'll bear thee stil], 
And when this life of want and ill 

Is well nigh gone, 
Thy strings mine elegy shall thrill, 
My harp alone!" — 

when the feeling prior, here on the mountain's brow, 
crooned forth these verses — the ruined exile stand- 
ing tired before' him, with his arm thrown over his 
bread-winner — let the susceptibility to emotion be 
here recorded of the expedition, which made us 
draw forth our purses and give to this rude votary 
of the "joyous science" more silver and gold than 
he had gathered in a week in all his roaming. We 
were as good as two or three villages to him. 

Having, however, some latent, half shame-prompt- 
ed idea that we might be indulging a little too much 
in a sentimental luxury, incompatible with the man- 
ly and somewhat rough, Runic character of our en- 
terprise, we daffed aside these softer emotions, and 
struck off into a lighter and gayer strain, more in 
keejDing with the actual state of the case around us. 
And so the Neapolitan, Jacomo, assumed once more 
his usual professional bearing, and struck his lyre 
to the strains that nightly over the earth swell the 
hearts of those who worship at the feet of Terp- 
sichore — that is, he played us some waltzes and 



THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 



20 



polkas. And presently we all began to dance — the 
little figures in the glass case in front of the organ, 
and we on the slaty summit of the mountain-road. 



/ / .<--^ . •: / / -■ 




S^fci^ 



Away we go, in fine accord with the minstrelsey — 
now waltzing together in bold sweeps around the 
brow of the mountain ; and now, with arms akimbo, 
dancing a polka, in many mazy gyrations, after the 
most approved manner of executing that dance, as 
it was first exhibited by the ballet-people at our 
theatres, before yet it became fashionable in high 
life. The whole affair we concluded with Fisher's 
hornpipe, through which we capered with such sur- 
prising agility as was never before or since made 
manifest on the top of any mountain in the United 



30 THE BLACKWATER CPIRONICLE. 

States — or, probably, at the bottom of aii}' one 
either. As we danced, we all sang, too, in accom- 
paniment with the strains, thus doubly taxing our 
powers. The dust flew, and rose into the heavens ; 
Jacomo's black eye sparkled as he swiftly turned 
his crank. The scene was as intense as the race 
down the quarter stretch between Eclipse and Hen- 
ry, when North and South hung suspended on the 
strife. We swam the very air agile and swift-bound- 
ing — some of tis — as the antelope; others with a 
strained, incongruous jerking and ponderous agil- 
ity, very much like what might be supposed of a 
buffalo in a hornpipe. Even the lame leg of Murad 
the Unlucky might be cauglit a glimpse of, every 
now and then, flying about in the midst of the hurly- 
burly as something independent of anybody pres- 
ent: in our American vernacular, it seemed, to be 
going it on its own hooh. The horses drew up 
around us with their wagons, and, with ears bent 
forward, and fascinated gaze, looked on in pleased 
wonderment. Fisher'^s hornpijje is perhaps one of 
the fastest tunes now known in all Christendom ; 
and yet, fast as w^e danced it, we sang it. It was 
thus the wild descant rang through the forest : — 

" Did you ever see the devil, 
With his iron wooden shovel, 
A scratching up the gravel, 
W ith his nightcap on ? 



Tire EXPEDITION DiLNCES A HORNPIPE. 31 

" No, I never saw the devil, 
With his iron wooden shovel, 
A scratching up the gravel, 
With his nightcap on." 

\_Repeated twicc^ 



" Did you ever, ever, ever, 
Ever, ever, ever, ever, 
Ever, ever, ever, ever, 
Catch a whale by the tail ? 

" No, I never, never, never, 
Never, never, never, never. 
Never, never, never, never, * 
Caught a whale by the tail." 

\_Repeated twice.'] 

The echoes around take up our voices at every 
pause for breath ; the mountains, as in the old 
Bible times, cry aloud for joy ; and ever see the 
devils and nightcap on^ and whole hy the tail^ 
in the cadence of the hornpipe, are repeated far 
and near, until at length the uproar dies away — in 
some fiir remote dell, a last faint, feeble sound of 
whale . . . tail, lingering for a moment on the ear, 
and all is hushed : the echoes have gone to sleep 
again, and nothing breaks upon the stillness of the 
mountains, save the lazy sound of the summer 
wind, that is itself almost silence. 

Somewhat fagged and out of breath, we now 
once more took to our wagons, the horses by this 
time well rested ; and leaving the ISTeapolitan, dis- 
consolate Jacomo, standing irresolute on the moun- 
tain's brow, we swept down the windings of the 



32 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

highway, at the rate of some twelve miles to the 
hour — Jacomo still standing motionless as a pic- 
ture, as we entered a wild defile of the forest, and 
for ever lost him to the sight. Winding our way 
over a broken range of picturesque hills, we at 
length entered a ravine, down which a clear, spark- 
ling stream hunts its course to a neighboring river. 
Here are some very remarkable cliffs of a pure 
white sandstone, which is in some demand among the 
nicer housekeepers of Winchester and Eomney for 
scouring purposes. Into the base of one of these 
cliffs, a large excavation has been made, where the 
rock is so purely white, that it suggests to you the 
idea of a quarry of the finest loaf-sugar. Passing 
these loaf-sugar cliffs, we drove on leisurely down 
the cool ravine, by the banks and through the fords 
of the silvery stream, when presently we emerged 
from the deep shadows of some thickly-clustered 
hemlocks and pines into the light of day, and 
found ourselves before the tavern door of Mr. 
Charles Blue. Here we stopped to feed and rest 
our horses for some two or three hours — taking 
care, in the meantime, to regale ourselves with such 
delicacies of fried chickens, broiled ham and eggs, 
and fresh butter and milk, as the house afi'orded us. 
About two o'clock — the day being still pleasant, 
and without any burdensome heat — we took to the 
road again ; and after some two hours' travel, through 
the green valleys and over other mountains, we at 



THE EXPEDITION DANCES A HORNPIPE. 66 

length came in sight of the httle town of Romnej, 
beautifully situated upon a sloping plateau of land 
that lies back of the high banks and bluffs of the 
South Branch ; the river here flowing along in all 
its winding lines of beauty — on through rich bot- 
toms and bold over-hanging mountains, to its junc- 
tion with the Potomac. 

Somewhere about four o'clock — after descending 
a long and beautiful sweep of road, grand enough 
in all its features to be the avenue to some lordly 
city — we drove up to the door of the village inn 
(the old Virginia designation is ordinary), situated 
pleasantly on the main street of Eomney, and kept 
by Mr. Armstrong, formerly a member of Congress 
from this district, but who has for some years past 
chosen the better part — shaken the dust of the cap- 
itol from his feet, and commanded the respect and 
good will of all considerate people who travel this 
way, by the manner in which he discharges his pres- 
ent representative duty to the public. In this com- 
fortable inn, we took our ease for the rest of the 
day, having accomplished just forty-four miles over 
those mountains, since first we drew rein in the 
morning. 

How the Signor Strozzi was taken by some of 
the good people of Romney for an Italian revolu- 
tionist — how Doctor Blandy built a very remark- 
able castle in the air, that from a neighboring 
eminence commanded the South Branch valley — 

9* 



34 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

how Mr. Bntcut set the porch in a roar, at a story 
he told of some cockneys who came over to New 
York to hunt bears about that city ; how the 
Prior discoursed eloquently on Lucerne grass and 
the ancients ; how Triptolemus, when the levee we 
held on the porch was at the highest, called every- 
body by somebody else's name ; how we passed 
altogether a very cheerful and gay evening of it, 
among the social citizens of Romney, who did us 
the honor to make our acquaintance — we will not 
detain the reader by setting forth in full in these 
pages, but here end this chapter, and with it the 
narrative of the evening. 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 35 



CHAPTER lY. 

THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED BY THE PRIOR OF ST. PHIL- 
IPS, FROM THE TOP OF THE ALLEGANY. 

tV^HAT time the skylark plumed his wing, the ex- 
pedition awoke from its slumbers, and betimes arose ; 
what time the sun peeped into the casements of the 
village hostel, it sat triumphant over a routed break- 
fast-table, and, like Alexander, sighed that it had 
no more to conquer. In this condition, he of Mace- 
don took to drink — but we to our wagons, with a 
good-by to pleasant Romney. 

The morning was delightfully bracing. Whether 
it was the mountain-air, or the mountain-oats, that 
inspired them, our horses carried themselves as 
proud as reindeers, and went down the main street 
of Romney with a free swing, fully up to the re- 
quirements of' the Dr. Johnson philosophy in this 
matter. As we crossed the high plain to the bhiffs 
of the river, the scenery of the South-Branch valley 
was just developing into expression — the mountain 
in bold masses, the winding river with its mists, the 
rich bottoms striped with cornfields, the long range 
of brown cliffs in the distance, and in the foreground 



36 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

the high pLain on which sat the picturesque town: 
all in striking contrasts of light and shade ; the dark 
shadows of the mountains, and the golden mists of 
the river; the spangled dewdrops on the meadows, 
and the funeral drapery of the pine-forests ; Apollo, 
from his chariot of the sun, elimning some new glory 
of the picture, as he drove on up the steeps of the 
skies. 

This glimpse of the sunrise-picture was all we 
saw, for it is but a mile from the town to the bluifs 
of the river, and these we have already gained. We 
now descended from the table-land, and crossed the 
South Branch by a good bridge. With the river on 
one side and the overhanging mountain on the other, 
we drove on for a mile or so ; when we turned off, 
and passed through the mountain on almost a dead- 
level road, winding along the side of a sti-eam that 
here makes its way through a deep cleft to the river. 
For some fifteen miles the road is a beautiful one — 
\ smooth, and of easy grade in its gradual rise toward 
the Alleganies ; now hugging the hills, now follow- 
ing the bends of the streams, now through valleys 
spotted with farmhouses and green with luxuriant 
grass. At length we came to the Knobley, which 
w^e ascended, passing through a hamlet scattered 
carelessly along the cultivated slopes of the mount- 
ain. This mountain presents a very remarkable out- 
line, being a succession of high knobs or peaks with 
intervening low depressions, giving it the appear- 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 37 

aiice of ail indented castle-wall. Tliroiigli one of 
these depressions we crossed, and descended by easy 
traverses to the other side. For a mile or so we 
w^ound our way through the defiles of a broken 
range of hills, and emerged at length into a narrow J 
and beautifully-picturesque valley — the Allegany 
piled up in grand masses on one side, and the road 
running for some miles along the banks of a clear, 
rapid stream, known hereabouts as New creek — 
just such a stream, so wild and cool, as the imagi- 
nation would fill with trout a fjot and a quarter 
long, and some four inches deep behind the shoul- 
ders. 

^^ the side of the sparkling creek, w^ith (no doubt) 
trout to be had for the casting of a fly, or tlie im- 
paling of a worm, w^e found a large and comfortable 
brick house, where a Mr. Reese keeps an inn higlily 
spoken of in these parts for its excellent accommo- 
dations. At the base of the Allegany stands invi- 
tingly the mountain-embowered inn. In front of 
this is the clear, cool, wild, dancing stream ; and up 
beyond this again, rises with bold ascent, almost at 
right-angles to the water, a richly-wooded spur of 
the Allegany, colored with all-blended hues of green, ^ 
from the pale tea-color of the mountain-ash, to the 
dark, grand, gloom green, almost invisible green, 
of the clustered fir-trees and hemlocks — tliese the 
nobler pines tliat more particularly distinguish the 
forests of the Allegany ranges. 



38 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

From Eeese's house, at the base, it is seven miles 
to the to23 of the Allegany — something of an Olym- 
pus to the warts behind us. Mindful of our horses, 
we gird up our loins for the encounter, and take to 
the heaven-kissing hill afoot. Half-way up there is 
a fountain of pure spring- water caught in a rude 
trough by the roadside ; and men and horses gather 
around, and revel in the mountain hippocrene. The 
lookout from here is already grand. Far and wide 
you behold the land we have travelled. On we go 
again, up and up, still up ; and the air you breathe 
is freer, and the scene wilder and yet more widely 
revealed at every turn of the road, rounding each 
rocky promontory that juts the mountain-side. 

In something more than two hours we reached 
the toll-gate, situated near the summit of the ridge, 
and commanding a prospect of all tlie land lying 
abroad to the eastward. This is one of the grandest 
and most diversified mountain-scenes in the whole 
range of our country : mountains piled on mount- 
ains everywhercj of every variety of size and shape, 
with all their valleys, glens, gorges, dells, and nar- 
row defiles — all yet varied by the changing light 
and shade that falls upon them from the heavens — 
as the heavens are ablaze with sunshine, or swept 
by passing summer-clouds. 

Altogether it is such a scene as seldom meets the 
eye. At once its glory has entered into the heart 
and fired the imagination, and we are a thousand 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 39 

times over repaid for the long, toilsome ascent that 
has given it to us. To view it aright, it should be 
seen under all changing aspects : at the dawn and 
the sunrise ; under the earlier and the later shadows 
of the morning ; when the midday blaze has made 
it all dreamy as an ocean unmoved ; as the shadows 
lengthen upon it in the evening ; as the gloom of 
the twilight gathers over it. To see it in its great- 
est sublimity, you should be here when, bare of leaf, 
and all rugged in its disclosure, it is terrible with 
the howling storms of winter — storms sweeping 
dreadfully both the heavens and the earth ! 

Yet, even in a half-hour's glance, much will be 
written upon the mind that can never be effaced ; 
and this " dim spot, that men call earth," will be 
ever after greatly dignified to your appreciation. A 
scene thus ennobling, let us not pass away from it 
too lightly. Let us portray it, even though it be 
with such indistinct limning as the few moments we 
loitered at the toll gate will enable. 

You are at such height here at the gate, that as 
you stand looking eastward, there is nothing to 
bound your vision but your natural horizon. You 
are above the whole scene ; and looking over it, you 
may be said to look down over it. You command 
it all, to the extent of the power of the eye. Far 
below you, some thousands of feet, is a wood-em- 
bosomed dell, with an open farm every liere and 
there spotted along it, looking at this distance like 



40 THE BLACK WATER CHEONICLE. 

patches of wild meadow and glade in the midst of 
the vast forest around. Immediately beyond rises 
a bold and rugged mountain, whose craggy top is 
indented like the battlements of a castle, and whose 
sides sweep down, dark with firs and hemlocks, and 
every variety of pines, to the edge of the deep val- 
ley. Looking to the right, the mountains are bro- 
ken and irregular, as if they had been tossed and 
torn to pieces by some mighty upheaving of the 
earth, and had thus fallen scattered about in con- 
fused, giant masses: some elegant and majestic as 
the " star'y-pointed pyramid ;" some grand and 
massive as the " proud bulwark on the steep ;" oth- 
ers of huge, misshapen bulk — the Calibans of the 
wild ; and others, again, so grotesque of form, that 
they seem to have been moulded by the very genius 
of Whim — the Merry- Andrews of the Alleganies: 
and all yet beautiful and soft to the eye, with the 
softening hues of summer — these summer hues pro- 
ducing the same effect here that time has wrought 
upon the rugged feudal castle, as so beautifully de- 
scribed in the verse of Mason : — 

"Time 



Has moulded into beauty many a tower, 
Which, when it frowned with all its battlements, 
Was only terrible" 

On the left the scene is in strong contrast with 
the grand and grotesque mountains we have just 
described. Here, along the steeps of the Allegany, 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 41 

you catcli picturesque glimpses of the winding liigh- 
way — and, again, you see it boldly emerging from 
the woods at the base of the mountain, and sweep- 
ing on through the open vale, and by the banks of 
the silvery stream, down past the embowered house 
and cultivated lands of Reese — on — and away, 
until it turns off, and is lost in the mountains. This 
little valley, which but this morning we traversed 
in part, now stretches itself out so far before us that 
it grows indistinct and confused to the sight — its 
fields so diminished in size that they look like 
garden-beds ; the winding stream that threads it 
seeming but a waving line of silver. The picture 
has all the delicacy of a scene in miniature, and 
there is a witching summer-softness over it all as 
of the beauty and the sheen of a voluptuous woman, 
or (if you prefer it) of a ripe peach. Further over 
in the mountains is a wider and more open valley, 
that seems from here almost a plain, and so hazy 
and indistinct are its outlines, that your imagination 
exerts its fanciful power, and you see — dimly — 
vaguely — towers, and temples, and mighty domes, 
revealing themselves before your eyes, as if some 
lordly city was about to grow up upon the plain by 
enchantment. Turning again, and looking straight 
forward, eastwardly, whence we came, and lo ! 
what ideas of vastness crowd upon the mind ; for it 
is all one vast sea of mountains, as far as the eye 
can behold— range beyond range ever appearing — 



42 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

heaviiis: like the blue waves of some immense sea 
— wave following wave in endless succession; for 
your horizon being bounded everywhere by moun- 
tains, to the imagination there is no limit, and all 
beyond is wave after wave of the same giant sea. 

Gazing upon this noble scene, the prior of St. 
Philips grew excited — his eye dilated — his soul 
was all ablaze ; and no longer able to hold himself, 
he stretched forth his right hand and gave tongue 
as follows : — 

" Gentlemen, I see into it all now, and if our 
invasion of the Alleganies effects nothing else I 
shall go home satisfied. Our mountains have been 
greatly slandered — most vilely traduced by the 
cockneys; and beholding this mighty scene, I'm 
lost in wonder that some man with a large enough 
soul, hasn't long since put them right before the 
world." 

" That's right, stick it into them, Prior ; give it to 
'em. County, you're the man to do it." 

" Put to route and everlasting shame the whole 
insolent and conceited herd." 

"Hash them, slash them, 
All to pieces dash them !" 

" Let them have it as Tom Hyer gave it to Sul- 
livan." 

"Dress their jackets genteely. Prior." 

" Dont spare either age, sex, or condition." 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 



43 



" Begin : — 

'"Oinnes conticuere iutentique ora tenebant, 
Sic ' " 

" Sic who ! He dont want any sicking, let liim 

go on." 

Silence being restored, and the rage of the expe- 
dition against the cockneys a little mollified by the 
steam it had let off, Mr. Philips plunged epic-wise 
into the middle of things. 

"If I were called upon, gentlemen, to say what 
was the great especial characteristic of our Ameri- 
can mountains, I would reply at once, their immen- 
sity—not the immensity of size, but of extent— 
that they fill the mind with the same order of 
sublime emotion that the ocean does, with this 
difference, that the sublimity, though alike in kind, 
is higher in degree." 

" Good, good !" 

" How clear he is !" 

" The mountain sea is the actual sea enlarged to 
giant proportions. Standing here as we do now, 
and gazing out into the blue waves flowing in 
toward us from the distant horizon, I want to know, 
gentlemen, what sort of a ship would that be, to 
which these waves would rise mast-high?" 

" What sort indeed ?" 

" Yes, you may well ask what sort ! not such, I 
take it, as sailed of old out of Tarsus and Tyre, cal- 
ling forth the deep wonder of Solomon; not snch 



4A: THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

as swept tlie seas under JSTelson at Trafalgar or the 
]^ile ; not such, even, as those that now sail under 
the star-spangled banner — that heaven-symbolized 
ensign — challenging the wonder of all mankind; 
not even leviathan, gentlemen, now in dock at 
Portsmouth — the Pennsylvania. JSToah's ark, when 
it rode the highest wave of the deluge — the merest 
cockle-shell as it must have seemed in those mighty 
waters, would be a merer cockle-shell in these." 

'' Fine. How figurative is his style !" 

"Like Jeremy Taylor's!" 

" Something of the massive grandeur of Bishop 
Hooker's !" 

" And the perfervidtim of Milton's, with a dis- 
criminating infusion of the swash-buckler." 

"And yet, gentlemen," continued Mr. Philips, 
knitting his brows, and cojicentrating his eyes to a 
focus, as if the object of all his bile stood before 
him, " and yet, though of such grandeur are these 
mountains, filling the mind with such nobility of 
thought, what means all this disparagement that is 
sputtered forth against them by the whole herd of 
modern travellers, abroad and at home, with some 
few honorable exceptions, who talk such downright 
arrant nonsense about them ?" 

"How efiPectually he puts a question!" 

" What a fool-killer he would make !" 

"The old Silenus riding an ass! Lambaste him 
well, Guy, while you're on him !" 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 45 

"It is the burden of all these cockneys, gentle- 
men, and particularly of the John Bull, our cousin- 
germain, that our mountains are poor concerns. 
Why ? Because (say these gentlemen fresh from the 
land of Cockaigne and thereabouts) when you have 
labored and toiled for half a day to get to the top 
of the highest Ararat or Taurus you can find, you 
can see nothing but endless mountains before you, 
and always in the farthest distant some giant higher 
still than that whereon, half-dead in climbing it, 
you foolishly expected to behold both the Atlantic 
and Pacific oceans." 

"How he accumulates it upon them!" 

" Piles the agony !" 

"Wood up. County!" 

" Throw in the bacon sides !" 

" And not true this, even in fact, but miserably 
untrue. Why, look aroimd you here as you stand. 
The refutation of the foolish nonsense is before your 
eyes. What are all these valleys, great and small 
— what all these dells and gorges, chasms, defiles, 
passes-— these streams and rivers, rivulets and rills. 
Look at that drove of fatted beeves, winding yonder 
over the Knobley — the long column seemingly in- 
terminable. What have you to say to that lordly 
city of the far mountain plain, with all its towers 
and domes — its vast palaces looming up to the eye, 
and looming larger as you concentrate your gaze ; 
visible only, it is true, to the imagination, acted 



4:6 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

upon through the deceived sense, but yet a nobler 
city than was ever built by ha^nds !" 

" Hold on, Prior, let's hear that again !" 

" Dont speak, Trip ; he's about to touch on some- 
thing profound." 

" And if such seeming cities, gentlemen, natur- 
ally arise to the eye here in the mountains — natur- 
ally, because the result of natural causes, what 
though in absolute fact there is no city there — 
what if it is illusion — all in my eye, as the vulgar 
say ? It is only the reasoning mind that tells you 
this. The imaginative mind tells you there is a 
city : one part of your intellectual organization 
says there is not, another part tells you there is, and 
which do you believe ? Most undoubted, as far as 
the present picture is concerned, the one that tells 
your sense that there before you stands the city. 
And there, to all intents and purposes, it does stand 
apparent before you, in all its magnified glory, 
such as was never built by human hands, such as 
can only be built by human brains, and those of the 
nobler order ; a city up to the standard of the new 
Jerusalem, if your imagination is of the order of 
St. John's. 

"Don't go in any deeper, Prior, or the subject 
will swim you." 

'' Devil the bit, its good wading all about where 
he is." 

"All this repeated cant, therefore, about our 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 



4:7 



American mountains is not true in point of fact. 
But what if it were?— yes, gentlemen, what if it 
were? And this question brings me to the gist 
of the matter. According to the very statement of 
the cockneys, upon their own showing, the view 
now before them, is one that fills -the human mind 
with ideas of the highest sublimity ; for what, to the 
man of the largest comprehension, can be more im- 
pressively vast than this same immensity of moun- 
tain ocean that everywhere presents itself to view, 
with all its heaving, interminable, giant waves!" 

" There you have knocked the swords out of the 
hands of the puny whipsters!" 

" Killed them dead !" 

" Dead as Julius Csesar !" 

" It's a slaughter of the innocents !" 

" It reminds me of the setting down Ulysses gave 
Thersites in the Grecian camp ! 

" It's great spouting !" 

" A whale's !" 

"Swamping the pigmies in a deluge of ocean 

brine !" 

"What a senator he would make! how they 
would crowd the capitol when he let himself out !" 

He's rather high-strung, I think, for the modern 
democracy !" 

"Not so, gentlemen, the very style and manner 
of eloquence— translucent, bold, free, combining 
imagination with reason — that has prevailed with 



48 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

all wlio speak the English tongue, from the days 
of Alfred the Great to the present time." 

" Gentlemen of the expedition," resumed Mr. 
Philips, wiping the beads from his forehead, and 
with a self-sufficient air that would have done for 
the prince of Tyre, or Xerxes when he ordered the 
sea to be chained, "I think we have sufficiently 
explained the cockneys." 

" Explunctified 'em !" 

'' All to smashes. Prior !" 

"At all events, gentlemen, I've said my say — 
I've spit my spite, and my soul is now tranquil. 
With a serene exaltation I can again gaze over 
these mountain Mllows. The scene is indeed sub- 
lime ! I hear " the mighty waters rolling evermore" 

— a sound as of the j^olicphloisboio thalasses is in 
my ear. What a manifold ocean ! Here on the 
right is the classic Mediterranean: — yonder mon- 
strous promontory in among those jagged moun- 
tains is Scylla ; and wo unto the mariner, who, 
eager to avoid its dangers, falls into the neighbor- 
ing Charybdis's awful vortex ! What a going round 
and round and round would be his ! and what a 
swallowing up as he takes the suck — down — down 

— derry down, to the roaring music of the mael- 
strom. Oh ! gentlemen, bnt it would be grand 
shipwreck over there. Here to the left, where the 
shining valley sliows itself, is the sunny Archi- 
pelago and the Grecian isles ; and that grand city 



THE COCKNEYS EXPLAINED. 49 

looming up from the waters is Athens — or jou 
may have it old Troy — or the glittering city of 
Constantine, by the Thracian Bosphoras. There 
to the north are those ' nncouth, boisterous seas,' to 
whose mercy Francis Drake 'let go' all that was 
left of the invincible armada. Here's the Horn, 
and there's the cape 'of storms' — where you see 
the clouds gather. Yonder hazy point is Hatteras, 
and that tall naked pine is the mast of some yankee 
coaster, wrecked upon its fatal sands. All before 
me is the Atlantic; and down yonder, fast-founded 
by the wide-watered shore, some fifty sea-leagues 
hence, methinks I behold the lordly dome of our 
capitol, its gorgeous ensign peacefully flapping its 
folds over the land of the free and the home of the 
brave ! And yet the cockneys say these a'n't moun- 
tains !" 

" God bless the star-spangled banner !" 

" And d d for ever the cockney or what not, 

that would disparage, in any manner, the country 
over which it waves." 

" At another time, gentlemen," observed the Sig- 
ner Andante, " I could desire to add something to 
the glorification of our mountains, w^hich the Prior 
hasn't condescended to touch upon : — it is in regard 
to the sylvan majesty of their scenery, in wdiich 
they differ entirely from the European. You have 
no idea how bare the mountains abroad appear to 
our eyes, accustomed to these grand forests. In 
3 



50 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

connection with this part of the subject, I would 
like to take the cockneys a turn or two, upon the 
splendor of the foliage in October — the hues of all 
dyes — particularly the scarlet — 

" ' The leaves that with one scarlet gleam, 
Cover a hundred leagues and seem 
To set the hills -on fire.' > 

" But we can 't stay here all day." And the 
signer, without a word more, and with all that 
directness and determination of manner that char- 
acterized him, betook himself to his rheda — all the 
rest following — the Prior a little whetted by the 
exercise he took against the subjects of the king of 
Cockaigne. 



WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 51 



CHAPTEE Y. 

WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN MR. EDWAED TOWERS. 

The sun by this time is riding nearly midway in 
the skies, and we hasten on to the summit of the 
mountain, seven miles up from its base. We have 
climbed " the mighty Helvelyn ;" and, what is more, 
we have said our say in doing it, to the honor and 
glory of the land, and the confounding of its ene- 
mies, their aiders and abettors. Here you gaze over 
the plateau of the wide Allegany ranges — some 
twenty miles across by the road ; and far in the dis- 
tance you behold the Backbone — the Taurus of the 
belt — down whose rugged sides the waters flow 
east and west into the far seas. 

Some four or five miles on our way^ more or less 
descending, on the side of a long hill that slopes 
down to Stony river, we stopped for the middle of 
the day at a large stone inn, kept open to the world 
by William Poole — Bill Poole seems to be his bet- 
ter-established designation hereabouts — from which 
familiar and easy manner of indicating him and his, 
we take it he is a good fellow, a lo7i camerado, in 
his neighborhood. Mr. Poole was not at home, but 



52 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

he had left a big viceroy over his dominions, under 
whose lazy sway some broiling and frying was ac- 
complished, that stayed a little that sacred rage 
about which we spoke in the beginning of this 
chronicle. The hostler also was absent; and find- 
ing no representative of that very important official, 
we turned in and groomed our own horses ; and it 
was well done — which sa3^s something as to the 
value of being able to take care of yourself in this 
wide world. We took our coats off, rolled np our 
sleeves, and "pitched in" to the work, according 
to the formula prescribed in the stables of Colonel 
Johnson, of Chesterfield — ^now dead and gone — 
whose word was once law in all matters of hippol- 
ogy — horse-talh the unlearned do call it. 

"That hardihood," observed Mr. Butcut, as he 
twisted a fresh wisp of straw, " which scales mount- 
ains, penetrates the wilderness, or subjugates the 
beasts of the chase, while at the same time it re- 
fuses to exert itself upon the needful well-being of 
your horse, is but little to be commended." 

" Right, Doctor Johnson !" 

" The great Cyrus," said Doctor Blandy, " did not 
think it beneath him to exercise his care over the 
elephants he took with him on his expeditions." 

"In Egypt, Kapoleon always took special care 
of the asses when he went into battle," said Trip- 
tolemus. 

" King Richard II., Shakspeare tells us, fed roan 



WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 53 

Barbary with his own hands," put in the Prior, ta- 
king a long breath. 

" If I am not mistaken," said the artist, " I have 
read it in the Iliad that Andromache herself fed 
Hector's horses — " 

" To be sure she did !" said Trip, " and with grain 
which she steeped in wine." 

"What is more directly to the point?" observed 
Blandy. "Let me remind you, gentlemen, of the 
personal care bestowed by Dugald Dalgetty upon 
Gustavus." 

" Enough," said Mr. Butcut. " That man is little 
to be envied who does not feel himself all in a glow 
at having accomplished the generous labor of rub- 
bing down his own horse. To my mind, it is an 
evidence of a princeh^ disposition. ^Nothing, indeed, 
can be more honorable — when you can get nobody 
else to do it for you — but if I rub my 'Gustavus' 
again, if he never gets a rubbing, I hope I may 
never reach Winston!" — And Peter threw down 
his wisp, and washed himself in the horse-bucket, 
after the manner of a hostler. 

With such like stable-talk — of which the above 
is but a small sample — we finished the rites, and 
left our Gustavuses to the enjoyment of their oats. 

In due course of time we once more encountered 
the road ; and after a drive of some twelve miles, 
over the undulating tops of this wide belt of mount- 
ains, down their gorges, through the passes, by fixrms 



54: THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

lately cleared and green with wild timothy, blue- 
grass, and white clover — the natural growth of these 
line grazing regions — we at length crossed the Po- 
tomac, and, winding up a long, fair sweep of hill, 
slackened rein before the gates of Winston. 

It was somewhere about five o'clock when we 
won the stone, having driven some forty-three miles 
since we left the pleasant town of Romney in the 
early morning : forty-three miles of such delightful 
travel as can hardly be found elsewhere within our 
borders. 

We hailed our resting-place with divers and man- 
ifold exclamations of surprise and delight, which 
brought the alert Towers to the hostel-gates, in a 
very broad-brimmed straw hat, stuck all over with 
fishing hooks and lines. The castle of Winston 
stands, like the castle of Eichmond, "fair on the 
hill ;" and although it did not greet our eyes with 
the feudal grandeur of Norham — with warders on 
the turrets, donjon-keep, loophole grates where cap- 
tives weep, and the banner of St. George flapping 
idly in the breeze, as that famous hold met the gaze 
of Marmion and his train as they came "pricking 
o'er the hill," yet it looked cheerful and pleasant 
enough — had an air of something even like elegance 
as the western sun shed its splendor upon it. The 
porches with which it was arrayed imparted a look 
as of something " bedecked, ornate, and gay," like 
Delilah, Samson's wife, " this way sailing." Above 



WmSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 55 

all, it filled the mind perforce with comfortable 
thoughts of the mountain-breeze, as it spread itself 
out on the brow of a commanding hill — a grand 
hill, that stretches down for half a mile in bold, 
lawn-like sweeps, to the Potomac : the river here 
flowing along in all wild beauty, some twelve or 
fifteen miles below where it emerges, a wimpling 
rill, from the slopes of the Backbone. 

The castellan or governor of Winston, Edwai-d 
Towers, Esq., met us at the portals, with evident 
gladness in his heart. Right away, he called for his 
right-hand man Andrew^, and proclaimed loud and 
quick his edicts in regard to horses, carriages, lug- 
gage, everything; every here and there something 
escaping his tongue, imprecatory of his or Andrew's 
eyes, or other parts of their bodies, snch as their 
lights or livers, and even their diviner parts : his 
movements all the while in just keeping with his 
utterance, being wiry and terrier-.like, up and down 
instead of longwise — energetic, sudden— just such 
action as hooks a trout without fail, and accounts 
for the governor of Winston's great reputation in 
these parts as a fisherman. 

" Walk in, gentlemen," said Mr. Towers ; " walk 
in, walk in. Aha ! well, indeed, you are here at 
last! Looked for you all day yesterday. Devil 
take me ! Where did you come from to-day, gen- 
tlemen ?" 

"From Eomney." 



56 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

"By this time! Where did you dine — not at 
Keese's? Perhaj^s you had something with you?" 

"We stopped back here some twelve miles, at a 
large stone house on the side of a hill." 

"At Poole's — Bill Poole's. He went up above 
here to-day, fishing, d n his eyes !" 

" How are the trout, Towers ?" 

"There's nothing else in the water! I just took 
Andrew yesterday evening, and went up to the falls 
of the Potomac ^ — slept out all night on the hem- 
lock — and by breakfast-time this morning got home 
with over two hundred ! How many, Andrew ?" 

" You're right." 

" Yes, two or three hundred. Devil take me, if I 
couldn't have caught a three-bushel bag full as easy 
as not!" 

This information was somewhat exciting, and gave 
rise to a desire, on the part of the more impressible 
members of the invasion, to commence demonstra- 
tions against the enemy forthwith. With this view, 
Doctor Blandy inquired of Towers the distance to 
the falls. 

" About eight miles," answered the castellan qui- 
etly. 

" And how is the road ?" 

"The .road — road, did you say! The middle of 
the river is the best road I know." 

"You can't ride to them, then?" 

"There is a sort of a way over the hills, if you 



WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 57 

could find it. But that stops at the laurel, just be- 
fore you come to Laurel run." 

"What's the laurel?" asked Triptolemus, open- 
ing his eyes. 

"You'll learn enough about it, Mr. Todd, before 
you leave here — more than j^ou '11 care about know- 
ing, I reckon," observed Mr. Towers, with a smile 
of superiority at Murad's ignorance of the laurel. 
" The laurel, Mr. Todd, is the big laurel of these re- 
gions, that borders all the streams; and it's about 
as much as a man can do to get through it, let alone 
a horse." 

"Ugh — uh !" replied Trip — which was a queer 
sort of laughing chuckle that characterized that gen- 
tleman upon all occasions. 

It was clear that the falls of the Potomac were 
out of the question that evening ; and notwithstand- 
ing all manner of trout were leaping up and down 
them in our mind's eye, we desisted for the present 
from any further investigations as to the way by 
which they were to be reached. 

" But, Towers," said Mr. Botecote, authoritatively, 
" there must cei'tainly be some place near here where 
we could have some pretty fair sport for an hour 
or so. I would like to add a few fish to your sup- 
per." 

At this announcement, Mr. Towers looked a little 
astonished, and replied, confusedly — for Peter's 
manner was something lofty and imposing — 



68 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

" Oh yes, certainly, Mr. 1 really didn't hear 

your name — " 

" Botecote," said Peter. 

" Certainly, Mr. Botecote — I didn't think of that ; 
I really thought now a couple of hundred might do 
you !" 

" You started with two hundred, raised immedi- 
ately to three hundred — may have four hundred 
by this time — and with all, Mr. Towers, I may pos- 
sibly go to bed only tantalized with them." 

" If there is one in the house this minute, there 's 
four hundred, big and little ! May the ^" 

"Be it so, then, Mr. Towers, and don't swear. 
I'll lay me down here on this settle, and methinks 
I'll take a nap." 

"To-morrow, then, we'll begin the attack." 

" Bright and early." 

"When the hunter's horn is first heard on the 
golden hills." 

" And I'll go with you," said Mr. Towers, " and 
show you the ground. We'll make a day of it — 
fish up to the falls and back. Those that don't want 
to go so far, can stay below here at some pools in 
the river. There's one pool that I call Ashmun's 
pool, after Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts. May be 
some of you know him. Devil take my lights now, 
if he didn't pull out of that pool a basketful ! One 
of them weighed a pound and a half; if it didn't, 
you may drown me !" 



WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 59 

"Ugli — iih !" exclaimed Triptolemiis. 

"J^o doubt about it," resumed Towers. You see 
he fished with the fly, which is a sort of curiosity 
to our fish, and rather takes 'em in for a little while. 
But give me the worm, after all." 

"You fish with the worm, then, Mr. Towers?" 

" Yes — anything I can lay my hands on." 

"Did you ever try the bug?" 

"The bug? what's the bug?" 

" The Prior there has one. You ought to see it ! 
I venture to say that every large trout in the stream 
will make at it." 

" What's it like ?" asked Towers. 

" Here's a likeness of it," replied the artist, ta- 
king out his pencil, and drawing a rather exagger- 
ated caricature of it. 

" Devil take me," exclaimed Mr. Towers, " if it 
won't scare the biggest trout that ever swam the 
Potomac ! That thing ! Why, what sort of a bug 
do you call it?" 

" It's called the trout hum-bug," said Peter. 

" Well, gentlemen, 1 had thought that may be I 
might some time or other try the fly, and see what 
I could do with it ; but if ever you get me to at- 
tempt that thing, may the But there's no use 

talking about it. Come along, Andrew, and get 
out some oats for the horses. The best oats you 
ever saw, gentlemen. Hustle, Andrew! — hustle 
along !" 



60 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

And so away hurried the castellan, with Andrew 
after him — Towers going off with a vehement, per- 
pendicular movement, like one of the old grasshop- 
per engines on the railroad, when under a great 
press of steam. 

" I think the Prior's bug was too much for our 
host," observed the artist. 

"He's a worm-fisher !" said Doctor Blandy dis- 
dainfully. " If I were you. Prior, when I got my 
bug out to-morrow, I wouldn't let him come on the 
same side of the river with me." 

"What a remarkably high mover he is!" said 
Trip. 

" If the governor of Winston's performance comes 
anywhere near the promise of his speech and move- 
ment, we shall fare well, both man and horse." And 
this fair promise was not broken to the sense — it 
was fairly kept. The oats were as fine as ever grew 
— heavy, polished, hard, plump, and golden ; and 
Andrew was only too liberal in dispensing them to 
each whynnying and pawing horse. As for our- 
selves, Gil Bias and Scipio ate no such supper in 
their retreat at Lirias. Fifty fine trout, all beautiful- 
ly embrowned, and like Ate, hot from — the flames 
below, came and went, and came and went again ; 
and so lightly did they sit upon our bosom's lord, 
that it seemed all illusion — the insubstantial and 
pageant supper of a dream — to divest the mind of 
which fallacy, nothing but the appropriate disposi- 



WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN. 61 

tion of a series of venison-steaks could suffice. A^- 
ter some protracted effort, however, in this way, the 
ilhision was finally driven out from the mind, and we 
were happy in the content of the succeeding hours 
— hours spent in dreamy silence, or in easy conver- 
sation upon subjects appertaining to the gentle phi- 
losophy of Epicurus. And so, without a disturbing 
thought, indolently reclining around, we whiled the 
time away. 

Thus passing the first hours of the night, at length 
we went to bed; and while yet conscious of bliss, 
sleep mingled itself stealthily in with the visions of 
the mountains and the rivers that were passing in 
ever-changing procession over the brain : each vis- 
ion growing more indistinct as the long procession 
swept on — until at length, with the splash of some 
leaping trout in your ear, and his bright colors 
gleaming in your eye, sound and sight were gone. 
Such is the sleep of those who travel high mount- 
ain-regions, or sail the salt seas in temperate climes. 
Such was at first the sleep of Uiis expedition, light 
as the early mist on the river. But, by-and-by, its 
folds descended more heavily upon us — heavy as a 
cloud; and then it became musical — ravishing the 
ear of night with a varied harmony, a concord in 
discord of flutes, and soft recorders, and horns — 
the loud bassoon, with every now and then a turn 
of the hurdy-gurdy, and sometimes the drone of the 
bagpipe. Kossini is said to have caught the idea 



62 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

of tlie song of the barber, in his great opera, from 
the braying of an ass. Had he heard this sleep, a 
far more wonderful strain would have streamed 
forth beneath the fingers of the immortal composer ! 
No Lilliputian slumber shall this chronicle record 
it, if I can help it — but rather that such as swelled 
grandly forth upon the night air, nightly, through- 
out the Brobdignag realms ! 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 63 



CHAPTER YI. 

THE BLACKWATER INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 

The head fountain of the Potomac rises high on 
the eastern side of the dividing Allegany ridge, not 
far below the cone of the mountain, and near the 
boundary-stone planted by Lord Fairfax to mark 
the farthest limit of that princely territory — embra- 
cing all the country lying between the waters of the 
Potomac and Rappahannock rivers — which he inher- 
ited as a grant from the British crown. The Potomac 
is formed, in its very beginnings, by the union of sev- 
eral smaller springs with this head-spring, as they 
descend the steeps of the mountain. The little riv- 
ulet, pursuing its course aloni>: the base of the Back- 
bone, is gradually augmented by the springs that 
flow down in every direction through the ravines 
around, until it attains a breadth of some thirty feet 
at the small falls, about five miles below its source. 
Below the falls there are some eight or ten streams 
making into it: the Big Laurel, Little Laurel, Sand 
run, and Shields's run, on the Maryland side ; the 
Horseshoe, Buffalo run, the Dog's Hind-Leg, and 
some others, on the Virginia shore. This accession 



6^1: THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

of little streams swells it into quite a sizeable mount- 
ain-river by the time it reaches opposite to Winston. 
It is here some sixty feet wide — a clear, fresh, wild 
stream, reflecting every pebble that lies in its bed 
— shaded by stately forests, and fringed with vines 
and flowers. Of course, it is filled with trout ; and 
although it is a good deal fished by those who fre- 
quent here in the summer, yet it still continues to 
yield up its treasure in sufficient abundance for the 
constant supply of the table at Winston. 

For two days we made unceasing war throughout 
this Potomac region, as far up as the falls. The 
first day we brought in over two hundred fish, some 
of them of fine size. The second day we took more, 
having invaded some of the larger tributary streams 
mentioned above. So it will be seen we had trout 
in abundance. 

When the third day came round, there was a gen- 
eral desire expressed, when we assembled at the 
breakfast-table, to foray in some new country. We 
had invaded the Potomac in all reason — having in 
these two days pretty well gone over the ground 
hereabouts. The mind of desultory man is still as 
studious of change, and pleased with novelty, under 
our republican order of things, as it has been here- 
tofore under the older polities of the world. Indeed, 
it is a characteristic of our American Saxon, exceed- 
ing that of all others of the Saxon, or any other com- 
bination. . . . But where to go? — that is the ques- 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 65 

tion. Mexico has been taken — and where shall we 
find a Cuba? Some proposed an incursion into the 
Glades, over about Snow creek, said to be unfre- 
quented ground : one was for the Evergreen-glades, 
another for the Oak-glades ; some for the lower Po- 
tomac — but there were rattlesnakes down the river, 
it was said, and that was a damper. In this variety 
of opinion, the indolent policy prevailed : and it 
was determined to pass the day siih tegmine — ram- 
bling over the hills, and in the enjoyment of an 
easy, lounging time of it about the porches of the 
inn. 

Sitting on the long porch that fronts the river, 
enjoying the cool breeze that seems always to fan 
these hill-tops, some mention, among our other talk, 
happened to be made of ''The Canaan," or wilder- 
ness-country, over on the head-waters of the Cheat. 
It so happened that one of our party had been told, 
many years ago, that this land of Canaan was as 
perfect a wilderness as our continent contained, al- 
though it was not many miles away from the Glades 
on one side, and the long settled parts of Hardy and 
Eandolph counties on the other ; a country where 
the wild beasts of the forest yet roamed as unmo- 
lested as they did when the Indians lield possession 
of our borders ; a howling wilderness of some twen- 
ty or thirty miles' compass, begirt on all sides by 
civilization, yet unexplored. This statement was 
brought to mind by the casual mention of the coun- 



66 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

trj as we sat talking iipon the porch ; and it led to 
mtich inquiry in regard to the wilderness. Our 
landlord, as soon as the subject was broached, en- 
tered largely into it, and dilated upon the wonders 
of the Canaan in very glowing terms. It was only 
a few years ago, he told us, that elk had been killed 
upon its boundaries, not far from the settlements, 
at a place called the Elk-lick. He said there w^ere 
deer in great herds — so wild, that they were almost 
tame. " And, gentlemen," he continued, with great 
animation, " if you can only reach the falls of the 
Blackwater, you can take more trout in an hour 
than you ever took before in all your lives." 

^'Ugh — uh !" exclaimed Triptolemus, with his 
usual chuckle. 

" You don't tell me so !" said Peter, with open 
eyes and mouth. 

" If you say so," resumed Mr. Towers, " we'll go 
into the countiy — Andiew can take care of the 
house — and we'll have such fishing as was never 
heard of. But understand now, gentlemen, you've 
got to do a little of the roughest and hardest sort 
of walkino; and climbino^. Then there's the Iaui-el 
you must go thiough. And you mustn't mind sleep- 
ing on heuilock, and in the rain too — it's always 
raining over on the Bone." 

This was only applying additional stimulus to the 
desire that had already taken possession of us, and 
at all risks we determined to go on the mori'ow, pro- 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 67 

vided we could secure the aid of two well-known 
hunters of this region to lead us on our way. Ac- 
cordingly, we despatclied a messenger to the house 
of Joe Powell, wlio lived on the borders of the Win- 
ston property, with a request that he would get John 
Conway, another hunter, living some miles farther 
off, and come down in the evening to see us. These 
men came over during the day, and it was all ar- 
ranged before they left us, that we would set off in 
the morning early for the Blackwater. 

Everything being put in train for the expedition, 
we gathered together on the long porch toward 
nightfall, and passed the time in much further dis- 
course upon the Canaan — commenting variously 
on the information we had gathered from Powell 
and Conway, who had been out as far as the smaller 
falls of the Blackwater, hunting deer in the winter- 
season, but had never been at the great falls of the 
stream — the existence of which they only infeired 
from the roar of water that filled the forest, when 
they were out there. 

In order that the reader may the better enter into 
the spirit of our wilderness adventure, we will take 
the liberty of introducing him more familiarly to 
our party. 

In a large arm-chair, spread out to the extent of 
his bulk, with his feet resting upon a bench, and 
leaning back against the railing of the porch, sat a 
gentleman — stout, ample, and muscular — with a 



68 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

handsome face, rosy with bloom, and a pleasant 
twinkle of the eye, that told of the mirthful charac- 
ter of his mind. Just now, though, hi's countenance 
was grave and thoughtful. Rattlesnakes seemed to 
have taken entire possession of him, ever since we 
had determined upon our march into the wilder- 
ness ; and presently he put the following question 
to Mr. Towers, with great emphasis : — 

" Do you think, Mr. Towers, that my big fishing- 
boots — that very big pair, with the red tops, hang- 
ing up against the wall — will save me against the 
bite of a rattler?" 

" Oh, bless you, Mr. Butcut, there are none in 
these hills. If there were, I can assure you, sir — 
may I be hang-danged if I would live here a single 
day — not even to own Winston! A rattlesnake, 
sir, has never been seen higher up this way than 
some two miles below yonder, at the foot of that 
mountain — and then only one — and he had to clear 
out. It don't suit 'em up here. Seven miles off 
yonder, on the side of that mountain, there is a den 
of them — where there are a plenty — so thick, you 
can smell 'em. But they stay down in that region, 
and never come up this way." 

" That's what Powell says ; for I took him one 
side, and asked him particularly about them. I 
think I would go into a fit if I should happen to 
tread on one of the blasted reptiles !" 
. " Make yourself easy about them. I pledge you 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. G9 

my lion est word, there a'n't aii}^ up here. The coun- 
try's too coolj or something or other, for them. The 
devil take me — but I believe if I was to see one of 
them, I would jump clean out of my skin! I'm 
monstrously afraid of 'em — and I confess it. I don't 
mind a wild-cat — he'll run from you : nor a bear, 
unless it's a she-bear, with cubs — and then look 
out, I tell you ! But rattlesnakes and copper-heads 
my nerves, somehow, won't stand. If I might take 
the liberty — you seem to have a little dislike to 
them yourself." 

" If you would put on a pair of thick cloth pan- 
taloons, and draw on a big pair of boots outside — 
such as mine yonder. Towers — I should suppose 
you would be safe from a bite." 

" I should hate to trust them any way ; rather not 
be struck at by them at all. Why, they have fangs 
an inch long !" 

" What would you do, if one was to bite you ?" 

"Just lie down and die — give it up at once." 

"IN'ot so," broke in the artist; "no necessity for 
dying at all. Take out your knife, and cut out the 
flesh round where you're struck — suck the wound 
— then burn some gunpowder into it — and you're 
safe enough." 

" Drink a pint or so of raw whiskey or brandy 
right off," observed the doctor, "and there's no 
danger." 

"Not so much from the snake, may be." 



70 THE BLAOKWATER CHRONICLE. 

" If I am not mistaken, I read an account, a year 
or so ago, of an experiment made before the Frencli 
physicians, by which it was ascertained that a flask 
of olive-oil was a certain cure of the bite. Two 
conntry-people came in, received the bite of a viper, 
swallowed a flask of oil each, and experienced no 
other harm than a little drowsiness for a few days." 

" Swallow a good deal of sweet milk," said a coun- 
tryman sitting by. "I've known that to cure a 
man." 

" Ean-de-luce," replied the doctor, "rubbed on 
outwardly, and taken internally to prevent coagu- 
lation of the blood, would be good." 

" Well, now," said tlie countryman who spoke 
before, " for my part, I'm more afraid of a copper- 
head than I am of a rattlesnake ; for he never gives 
you any warning. He's a night snake, too — he'll 
bite at night, and the other won't." 

"How much olive-oil have you in the house?" 
inquired Peter. 

" I don't believe there's any," replied Towers ; 
" but I've got a plenty of castor-oil," if that would 
do." 

"Have you any fish-oil?" asked Triptolemus. 

"I think we had better drive a cow along," said 
Andante. 

"What wnnild you milk her in?" 

"In the frjnng-pan." 

"I am free to say, gentlemen," observed Mr. But- 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 



71 



cut, '' tliat I have more confidence in the brandy 
than anything else ; and, as that is more at hand, 
we'll each take a flask with us, in case of acci- 
dents." 

This proposition was readily assented to — and 
with it the subject of the rattlesnakes was about to 
be dismissed ; but in the meantime the artist had 
taken out his pencil, and drawn a caricature of But- 
cut pursued by a rattler — his hair on end — eyes 




'»7t/ 



^.cTri^**^^- 



wide — nostril distended — fishing-rod, with a big 
trout on the end of it, dropped — and the rattler, 
with about twenty rattles on his tail, and his crest 
raised ready to strike, in hot pursuit ! The carica- 

The castellan was both as- 
" Isn't it like him ?" he 
exclaimed, and broke out into what an old-country- 



ture was well enough, 
tonished and delighted. 



'79 



THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 



man of my acquaintance used to call an imhrurnpt 
laugh^ and took the drawing off to show it to his 
wife. Returning, he looked upon the Signer with 
more of deference than he had been disposed to 
show him before. His countenance had something 
of mingled wonder and delight as he fixed his eyes 
on him — some such expression as a man of the mid- 
dle ages might be supposed to wear on his face as 
he gazed upon some imposing magician or sorcerer 
that had just performed a wonderful feat of art. 

The rattlesnake terror had now altogether van- 
ished. The caricature had killed it efi'ectually ; and 
the conversation took another turn. 

" Towers, what wild animals are there over in the 
wilderness ?" 

"Plenty of them — bears, wolves, panthers, deer 
in crowds — some few elk, I reckon — and otters, 
and badgers — all the animals that ever were there." 

" Do they ever attack you ?" 

" Not unless they are particularly hungry, which 
can't be at this time of the year. Your fire at night 
will keep them away from you, any how ; though I 
have heard it said the panther has been known to 
walk between a party sleeping and the fire at their 
feet." 

"That, I suspect, was a dream of some one who 
had gone to sleep with the wild beasts running in 
his brains." 

"You have nothing to fear from the animals. 



THE INTASION DETERMINED UPON. 73 

The only thing you have to fear is losing your- 
selves. But Powell and Conway are good woods- 
men ; and, besides, tliey have been partly in the 
country. There is a story about, which I've heard 
ever since I've been living up here, that a good 
many years ago a stranger went into the Canaan, 
and was never heard of afterward. Years after, 
the skeleton of a man was found by some of the 
hunters that had ventured furthest into the country." 

"That's very pleasant information for us, Mr. 
Towers. Do you think there is any chance of our 
leaving our bones out there ?" 

"Every man runs his chance." 

"The devil he does! Why, this Canaan is not 
altogether more than some twenty or thirty miles 
of country in length, and, I suppose, not wider. 
How could a man well get lost in that compass ?" 

" Oh, very easily. Why, in those mountains a 
man could walk about for a week, from sunrise till 
sunset, particularly if he got into a big laurel-brake, 
and never at any time be 'Q.ve miles from where he 
started, unless he blazed his way." 

Mr. Botecote mused somewhat seriously for a 
while upon this information, but finally came to the 
conclusion that the lost man and the skeleton was 
a fable, and that it was nonsense to talk about liis 
being lost in any five miles of country. This 
seemed to be the conclusion of the rest of us. 
There is some such legend always told by the bor- 

4 



74 THE BtACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

derers upon every wild country. But, again, such 
things are rather probable. Men have been lost 
before in countries far less wild than the Canaan 
turned out to be. However, we entertained no 
apprehensions of encountering anything worse than 
some endurable fatigue and hardship; and the con- 
versation passed off into general pleasantry and 
merriment, in which the castellan of Winston came 
in for a pretty good share of rather free raillery, 
aimed at those more prominent peculiarities, which 
the reader will by this time recognise as belonging 
to him. 

Murad the Unlucky, who had not said a word for 
an hour, but sat with his lame appurtenance thrown 
over the back of a chair, apparently drinking in the 
conversation like mothers' milk, now broke speech 
to the following effect : — 

"Well, Mr. Powers, I've just been thinking what 
a mighty talker you are ; you talk about like a 
horse I have at home runs. He beats everything 
in the whole country — but you can't rely on him; 
he won't keep the track." 

" Why, you don't think so, indeed ! Devil take 
my lights, I thought I was slow !" 

"Don't you think you stretch it a little, Con- 
ners?" said Murad, expressing himself a little 
plainer. 

" Every word true, Mr. Todd ; blast my eyes ! 
and more too ; I haven^t told you anything." 



THE INVASION DETERMmED UPON. 75 

" Wliat ! all that about the rattlesnakes, and the 
bears, and the panthers, and elk, and such crowds 
of deer, and especially that about finding the bones 
of the lost man ! Ugh ! uh !" Here Murad mused 
a moment, and went on. "Towels, are you any 
relation to the Conners down our way ?" 

It must be observed that Murad, among his other 
unlucky traits, had an unlucky way of confounding 
the names of all persons he encounteied — a vice 
of his intellectual composition that nothing could 
eradicate ; and so upon this occasion, Towers's name 
was mixed up in his mind with Powell's and Con- 
way's — the two hunters — so inextricably, that he 
had none of them straight. 

"To the Conners, did you say, Mr. Todd? The 
Conners ! Devil take me, if I ever heard of any 
such people !" 

" Why, as you are of the same name, I thought 
you might be some kin." 

" May the devil ! — blamenation ! — if ever I saw 
— Conners — my name isn't Conners ! 

"There you are. Trip — at it again," said Peter, 
who seemed to take Murad under his especial su- 
pervision. "I'll swear, gentlemen, he hasn't 
called any single man, woman, child, or horse — 
anything by a right name, since we left home. 
Why, Triptolemus, Towers's name isn't Towels, or 
Powels, or Conners, or anything of the sort. It's 



76 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

Towers^ Towers^ Towers — T-o-w, Tow — e-r-s, ers 

— Towers!" 

" Well, what's the odds ?" said Murad. " It don't 
make any such mighty difference. But you're 
some kin, a'n't you, Powels?" 

" Well, I dare say I am, if I only knew distinctly 
which of my relations you mean. But what makes 
you think so ?" 

" Why, you talk so fast, and so much, that you 
remind me of one Connel, a lawyer down our way 

— a great pleader — who can out-talk any man I 
ever heard, until I had the pleasure of making your 
acquaintance ; has a great gift of what they call 
the gab. You're a Virginian anyhow, a'n't you, 
Towels?" 

" I don't know what he is now, but his ancestors 
came out of Babbleon," said the artist. 

" Suffered under the old Babbleonish captivity," 
chimed in Galen. 

'' From which the race haven't yet been entirely 
redeemed," put in the Master. 

"Well, that's pretty well; but, may the devil 
take me, if I don't think some of Mr, Todd's an- 
cestors must have come out of the tower of Babel !" 

''Right," said Peter — "right, governor. It's 
the only way of accounting for his confusion of 
names. And by the way. Trip, if you would bear 
tlie tower of Babel in mind, it miglit help you to 
get Towers's name right." 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 77 

" It wont do," said the artist. His mind is essen 
tially a transposing one. He'd have it the bowei 
of Table!" 

" I give it up, then," said Peter, and he threw 
himself back in his arm-chair, with an air of resig- 
nation. 

"Well, but, gentlemen," said the doctor, in his 
very pleasant, gentlemanly manner — (Galen was 
very deliberate when about anything like a witti- 
cism, and having studied one out to suit himself, 
some time back, he was determined that it should 
not be lost, notwithstanding the conversation that 
made it appropriate had gotten away from him) — 
" Well, but, gentlemen," said he blandly, and with 
a certain tickling sensation of picasure upon his 
countenance, " this is letting Mr. Towers escape us. 
When we were running him about Babbleon just 
now, and fixing upon him a Babbleonish extraction, 
it occurred to me there must have been also some 
of the old Greek blood in him." 

"How do you make that out, doctor?" said 
Towers, smiling. 

"Why, by tracing your descent, Towers, in part, 
from the very famous old lawgiver of Sparta, Ly- 
curgus." 

"How is that? Wlio was this Lycurgus?" said 
the castellan, evidently very much flattered at the 
idea of being descended from any man with a name 
that he didn't understand. 



78 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

*' He was an old Greek, Towers — a Lacedemoni- 
an," said the Prior, taking up the doctor's idea — 
" an old fellow named Cnrgus, one of the Curgiises 
of Sparta — a very remarkable family of people. 
But in the course of his life this old gentleman liad 
told so many stories, about one thing or another, 
that by way of distinguishing him from the other 
Curguses, the people of his parts used generally to 
call him Curgus, the story-teller or romancer. The 
length of this designation, however, being contrary 
to the genius of the Spartans, who were a people 
of few words ; they shortened it by calling him 
Lie-Curgus, which after a while came to be his re- 
ceived name." 

"There were a great many other distinguished 
Greeks who acquired their names in the same way," 
observed the artist, " there are the Liesanders." 

"And Lysemachus — a condensation you per- 
ceive, of Lies Tie "tnctkes us?'' 

"The Greek genius is characterized, from the 
earliest ages, by an aptitude for invention." 

" What monstrous fabrications some of those are 
which Homer relates !" 

" Don't talk about them," said Triptolemus, " my 
back stings me every time I think of them. Tlie 
whippings that I've had on account of them, are 
really horrible to think of." 

" What were you whipped for, Mr Todd ?" 

"Ignorance of Homer, Mr. Towels; undoubted 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 79 

ignorance, sir — clear — clear as day — not the least 
mistake about it. But my ignorance of that 
difficult language, Mr. Connel was owing to my 
aversion to stories. Had Homer told the truth 
about the siege of Troy, I should have mastered 
him. You see. Towels, my feelings somehow or 
other were born on the Trojan side ; and as soon as 
I began Homer I knew^ it was all a Greek lie : you 
may say, therefore, that I fell at Homer. But don't 
distress yourself at this little passage in my biogra- 
phy ; I can assure you I haven't the same strong 
feelings in regard to your interesting account of the 
Canaan, although I must say I don't exactly believe 
all you tell us." 

"May the devil roast my lights and livers, gen- 
tlemen, if I don't begin to believe you really think 
I have been stretching it a little about the Black- 
water. ISTow do you know I haven't told you half 
I could tell you. The man's bones were found out 
there — I saw 'em myself — and for the deer, they 
are just in thousands ; and as for bears, why one of 
'em had Andrew by the throat — I mean, devil take 
my lights — up a tree down here for an hour, one 
day, not two miles from this house — yes, on Win- 
ston — and he shot him too — didn't you Andrew ? 
And if you find a rattlesnake out there, why, I'll 
just give you leave to eat me, lights and all. As 
for the elk, I'll bring you a man, living not far fiom 
here, who will swear to you that he saw one him- 



80 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

se'i', that was shot, not more than three years ago. 
jNow I'll tell you what, gentlemen, I'll take an even 
bet with any of you, that you get lost notwithstand- 
ing you've got Powell and Conway with you — two 
as good woodmen as ever went into the woods." 

" I don't care if we do," said the artist, " I'll fish 
in the Blackwater in spite of my bones." 

"If all the wild beasts of the wilderness howl 
around my path, I'll stand by the Signor's bones," 
said the Prior. 

"If I could only feel certain about the rattle- 
snakes," said Peter, "it would take off the only 
weight on my mind. But between my boots and 
the brandy, I will defy them." 

" The idea of driving a cow in for the milk cure is 
abandoned, I suppose." 

" Put up a plenty of provisions, Towers. I can 
stand anything better than starvation." 

" Yes, gentlemen, and if you don't come back on 
the day you say, I'll get up a party and go in after 
you." 

"Eight — right; but I thought you were to go 
along, Mr. Powway." 

"There you are again, Trip, its intolerable — 
absolutely ridiculous. "Will you never learn to call 
him Towers ! You have no idea how it disturbs 
the flow of the conversation." 

"I think, gentlemen," said Galen, delicately sug- 
gesting it, " that if Triptolemus would commit some 



THE INVASION DETERMINED UPON. 81 

verses to memory that had the word towers in 
them, he might possibly control this bias he labors 
under." 

" A good idea — try it, Trip." 

" Ugh — uh !" said Murad, with his peculiar ejac- 
ulation. "There you're too much forme again, I 
don't tliink I ever knew any in my life." 

" Well, then, gentlemen, we'll give him some." 

"Begin — some one." 

" I will, willingly," said Peter. 

• "'Day sat on Norham's castled towers,'" — 

" Day didn't," said the artist, " it set on :N'orham's 
* castled steep' — that won't do. Try it again." 

" I have a glimmering of a line that ends with 
hostile towers — but I can't make it out exactly." 

"The gentle Surrey," said Galen, and then stop- 
ped short. 

"What of Surrey?" 

"I thought it was something about towers — but 
it isn't — it's 'loved his lyre.'" 

"That's it— that will do," said Trip, "that will 
remind me of him — if you can find nothing better." 

"There's a verse, gentlemen," said the Prior, 
"that has something about towers hedight — but I 
can't come at it. It ends with temples (md towers 
hedight. Do any of you remember it ?" 

"Towers bedight!— Towers be d d!— Lets 

go to supper," said the artist. And to supper we 
4* 



82 thp: blackwater cheonicle. 

went — Towers bediglit or Towers be- what you 
please, leading the way, and altogether delighted 
at the prominent figure he cut in the evening's 
conversation. 

The supper had a subduing effect upon the viva- 
city of our spirits ; and so, with a due regard to the 
Blackwater invasion on the morrow, we retired 
early to bed. The bright clear moon looked in aus- 
picious through the curtains of our windows — and 
to the gentle lullaby of the Allegany night-breeze 
we fell fast asleep. 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 83 



CHAPTEE YII. 

THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC AND A SOMEWHAT PAR- 
TICULAR DESCRIPTION OF THE ARRAY. 

It was somewhere about four o'clock next morn- 
ing when we began to give out in sleeping ; and so, 
lightly and airily, with gentle breathings, whisper- 
ingly, we now soon finished off the last delicate 
touches and roundings of our dreams about bears, 
and panthers, and rattlesnakes, and lost babes in 
the woods (meaning tliereby ourselves), &c., &c., 
just as the early cock uplifted his clear clarion, 
and roused his dame Pertelotte and all the attendant 
damsels of the roost from their slumbers. 

How finely our old first poet — he who 

" left half told 
The story of Cambuscan bold," 

— famous Chaucer — head of the English poet peer- 
age — has pictured the gallant chanticleer: — 

"His comb was redder than the fine corall, 
Embattled as it were a castel wall ; 
His bill was black, and as the jet it shone, 
Like azure were his legges and his tone. 
His nails were whiter than the lily flower, 
And like the burned gold was his colour." 



84 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

And how, with the soul of eloquence and poetry 
he makes him discourse — hear again: — 

"He knew by kind, and by none other lore, 
That it was prime, and crew with blisful steven, 
Tlie soune, he said, is clomben up on heven, 
Twenty degrees and on, and more y wis ; 
Madam Pertelotte, my worlde's blis, 
Herkeneth the blisful birddes how they sing, 
And see the fresh flowers how they spring ; 
Fill is mine harte of revel and solas." 

And again ; what a lordly cozener is our chanti- 
cleer — what handsome flattery of his dame — and 
with what pleasant humor he trifles with the sex. 

"But let us speak of mirthe, and stinte all this, 
Of o thing God has sent me large grace, 
For when I see the beauty of your face. 
Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyen, 
It maketh all ray drede for to dien : 
For all so sicker as, in principio " 
Mulier est hominis in confusio, 
(Madam, the sentence of this Latin is. 
Woman is man's joy and man's blis.)" 

And then how like a prince — royal in his port, 
and gallant is he — very much after the model of 
Henry lY. of France, when in the midst of his 
dames. 

" He loketh as it were a grim leoun. 
And on his toos he rometh up and down : 
Him deigned not to set his feet to ground: 
He chukketh when he hath a corn yfound, 
And to him rennen then his wives alle." 



TIIE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 85 



The reader is now aware, that some time since, 
the early cock had proclaimed the morning. In 
the beautiful verse of Chatterton — 

"The feathered songster chanticleer, 
Had wound his bugle-horn, 
And told the early mountaineer 
The coming of the morn." 

It is now broad day, and the ruddy streaks are 
beginning to glimmer in the east. Up rise we, then, 
one and all, and shout aloud, " For the Blackwater !" 
The doors and windows are thrown wide open, and 
the mountain atmosphere — three thousand feet here 
above the sea — is all about us ; and if you have 
never tried it, O unblessed lowlander ! you can have 
no idea of its extremely animating powers : there 
are few things more stirring to both body and soul. 
It compels to many extravagances of both speech 
and action. Especially it makes you sing, whether 
you can or not : and so it was that, chanting songs 
of the morning, we made our orisons to the god of day, 
Phoebus Apollo, now emerging in all-unutterable 
glory through the golden portals of the east: — 

" Thou splendid luminary ! honored, in some form 
or other, by all the nations of old ; proclaimed prince 
of the lights of heaven throughout all the realms of 
Christendom ; worshipped by the barbarian, wonder 
of the savage ; saluted in thy rising with the clash 
of cymbals and gongs, and the flourish of trumpets 
and horns, the roll of drums, and the roar of morn- 



86 THE BLA.OKWATER CHRONICLE. 

ingguns; man everywhere doing thee homage — 
in the old East, prostrate with slavish adoration ; 
here in the new West, standing erect (as I do now), 
and with dilated chest, pouring out his soul in 
hymns of praise, as befits his free-born nature! — 
Great God-send of all mankind ! particularly of all 
poets and orators ; filling the world with the grand- 
est of the grandeurs of simile, and trope, and meta- 
phor ; also at the same time usefully beneficent in 
imparting both light and heat, without which this 
earth would be about as dark and cold as a rat-hole, 
and almost as fit to live in — really the dim spot 
that a disconsolate philosophy would make it out 
to be ! — Beneficent and beautiful mystery ! such as 
thou art here in thy rising over these broken and 
piled-up AUeganies ; lighting up the grand counte- 
nance of Nature around, as with the smile and the 
glory of a god ! no wonder that all languages and 
tongues, even from the Chaldee down to our mod- 
ernest Brother-Jonathan dialects, should be exhaust- 
ed in the utterance of such a worship." — ("Good- 
morning, Mr. Towers. You seem to be in consid- 
erable astonishment. Take a seat. The expedition, 
through Mr. Butcut, is addressing the great lumi- 
nary, whose gorgeous rising we take to be a happy 
omen for our enterprise.") — " Fountain of light and 
life! — hailed by the choir of birds; encircled by 
clouds of gold ; fair as a bride and fiery as a bride- 
groom ! thee to resemble — thee! — that w^as the 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 87 

very boy's first wish and proud desire, through every 
vicissitude of fortune, amid the glitter of prosperity, 
above the tempests of mischance, to maintain an 
undecaying splendor !" 

After this address to the rising Splendor — part 
of which was made once before by Alcibiades when 
a banished man in Thrace at the court of King 
Seuthes — where, it will be remembered by the 
learned reader, he outdrank the w^hole barbarian 
court — the king, queen, princes, courtiers, warriors, 
ladies-in-waiting, and all — thus fulfilling his match- 
less destiny — peerless in everything, even in these 
wild Thracian orgies — after this address to the great 
luminary, we speedily arrayed ourselves, and forth- 
with appeared below-stairs, as respectable and pic- 
turesque a set of outlaws in appearance as ever 
robbed a rich grandee of his gold, plundered mon- 
astery or cathedral of old of its molten gold and sil- 
ver, or bore away shrieking maiden to the hidden 
fastness in the forest. 

It was in this order that we began our march : 
Tliree of us were on hoi*seback, with wallets hung 
across our saddles, containing the provant for the 
expedition — which provision consisted of six large 
loaves of bread ; some pounds of ground coffee ; 
sugar ; about ten pounds of middling of bac<^n, to 
fry our trout with ; a boiled ham ; salt, pepper — 
and that's about all. Cigars and tobacco to smoke, 
each adventurer carried about his own person, to- 



88 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. 

getlier with a flask of spirits to cure himself in case 
he was bitten by a rattlesnake, or perad venture to 
prepare his system beforehand against any delete- 
rious efi'ects from the bite — a somewhat unnecessa- 
ry precaution, indeed, since we were all pretty well 
convinced there were no snakes in the Canaan. 

Three of us were afoot — two of our original party 
and Powell, one of the hunters — he equipped, among 
other things, with his rifle ; Conway, the other hunt- 
er, we were to pick up on the way. 

We were to ride and walk alternately — ride and 
tie — until we reached the end of the settlements, 
which was as far as we could take the horses. 

Pursuing the Northwestern road some three miles, 
we reached the top of the Backbone ridge. Here, 
turning at right-angles to the left, we followed a 
mountain-road along the top of the ridge for some 
miles, which at length took its course along the 
eastern side of the mountain, gradually growing into 
a mere single horse-track, until we reached Con- 
way's house, the last settlement in this direction. 
Here w^e picked up Conway, with his rifle and fry- 
ing-pan ; and after a walk of some six miles or more 
through a most noble forest of sugar-trees, the beech, 
maple, wild-cherry, balsam-firs, and hemlocks, and 
over tracts of land wonderfully fertile, judging by 
the great size of the trees, and the growth of the 
wild timothy uj^on one or two slight clearings we 
passed through, we at length descended into a beau- 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 89 

tiful little glade — more properly a dale in the mount- 
ains — some three hundred yards wide and two or 
three miles long, where we were to turn out our 
horses to pasture until our return. 




This dale is girt round upon its edges by a broad 
belt of the Rhododendron — commonly called the 
hig laurel out here — which makes the dale a safe 
enclosure for keeping our horses ; for it is impossi- 
ble that a horse can make his way through it, so 
thick and lapped together everywhere are its branch- 
es. We had to enter it by a path cut out for the 
purpose. When within, we barricaded the entrance 
by piling up some young trees and brushwood 
(which was equivalent to putting up the bars in a 



90 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

fenced field), and rode on down the middle of tlie 
wild meadow, tlirongli green grass, knee-high, and 
waving gently in the summer wind, until we reached 
a small stream, whose banks were overgrown with 
osiers and other delicate shrubs. This w^as the infant 
Potomac, destined before it reached the sea to expand 
into that mighty river on whose broad bosom whole 
navies may ride in safety or " flame in battle ;" and 
also famous all over Christendom for that it holds 
fast-founded by its shores the capital of the star- 
emblazoned republic. Here we halted and dis- 
mounted — took oif saddles and bridles — turned 
our horses loose — and prepared ourselves to enter 
the untrodden wild that rose up before us, dark 
with the glimmer and the gloom of the immemorial 
woods ! 

Before the expedition moves, it is necessary that 
we should enter into a few particulars descriptive 
of the adventurers in the new aspect in wdiich we 
are about to present them to the reader. 

Behold, then, at about one o'clock in the day, 
the knights-errant of the Blackwater, in the middle 
of this little grassy dale of tlie Potomac. Let us 
point them out to the reader by name, and in a gen- 
eral w^ay by character. 

First, there stands before you a slight, elastic, 
and somewhat gaunt gentleman, with a dark, con- 
centrated eye, sunk deep beneath a marked and 
rugged brow. The expression of his face at pres- 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 91 

ent is particularly indicative of that sort of energy 
and determination of character, which is very apt 
to make its possessor what is vulgarly called 
head-devil in all matters of feud, foray, or what- 
ever enterprises that might be classed under the 
designation of marauding — all dare-devil achieve- 
ments. The imagination of the wilderness before 
him, has called into play these latent qualities of 
his nature. Tliis gentleman wears a beard, after 
the fashion of the middle ages, that has held undis- 
turbed possession of his lower face for now some 
fifteen years ; with all his present surroundings, it 
gives him the look of a brigand as in a picture ; 
meet him in the streets of a capital, and it would 
impress you with the idea that he was a practition- 
er of astrology, or some other occult matter — may 
be some Italian philanthropist, or revolutionary 
conspirator — the friend of liberty all over the 
world, wherever liberty had a market : his disdain 
of a feather and all melo-dramatic show of appear- 
ance, precludes any idea of the Hungarian, as re- 
cently impressed upon our minds. He wears a 
green cloth cap, with a straight, projecting square 
visor to it, like the European military caps. An 
old black coat, with gray pantaloons, and a pair of 
rough boots with large red tops — these drawn on 
outside complete his dress. He has no small wal- 
let strapped to his back — a blanket and a great 
coat rolled up constitute it. Around his neck is 



92 THE BIACKWATER CHRONICLE:. 

suspended an artist's sketcli-book. In his right 
hand is a frving-pan. This is our artist, the Signor 
Andante Strozzi. Of course, he is of the ilhistrious 
Florentine family of that name, some one of his 
ancestors having escaped from the feuds and broils 
of Italy, some centuries ago, and taken refuge on 
these shores. Tlie name has changed so much in 
the course of time, and one thing and another, here 
with us, that you would hardly recognise it, as it is 
spelt and pronounced now in these days of demo- 
cratic disdain of all things appertaining to a man's 
name and lineage. "We, however, his more learned 
friends, and not too extreme in our democracy, 
choose to call him, according to the old Italian spel- 
ling and sound — Strozzi. There is a Dutch family 
in rennsylvania, the Strodes, who are disposed to 
trace their origin in the same way from the Strozzi ; 
but this they have no right to do. The Strodes are 
Teutonic in their descent : they are the old Saxon 
— the undoubted High Dutch : Stride was the name 
originally. The Strides, Striders, Strodes, and all 
these, are of German extraction, and in fact the 
same people originally. Our friend is the true 
Strozzi, however ; and he shows his Itahan origin 
by the peculiar beard he weai*s, his love of and ge- 
nius for the arts (^particularly those of painting and 
musicV and some slight brigandish characteristics 
that belong to him, which last make him a some- 
what danirerotis antaixonist for man or beast to dallv 



THE DALE ON TIIE POTOMAC. 98 

with, and therefore one in every way tlic very per- 
son for an expedition into the Canaan — a man wlio 
wonld hmgh a hear in the face, and take particnlar 
pleasure in pitching into a pantlier ; one wlio Avould 
he ahout as careless of conseqnences in any encoun- 
ter as either of these two hist-named gentk^nien ! 
So much for the Signor Andante Strozzi. 

That stout, thick-set, well knit gentleman, whose 
manner is somewhat eager, with lace in a glow, 
eye red, and mouth open — look at him! lie is 
lahoring at present under an undue quantity of ex- 
citement. The idea of the wilderness has electritied 
his system into intense sensation. His ideas are 
exagi}:erated out of all hounds. Tie has just tinished 
strapping on his shoulders an immense wallet, big 
enough for a mule to carry. But he looks stout, 
and broad, and strong — is well made — and you 
think it is all right, and that he has generously 
loaded himself according to his greater power. 
Well, he'll be tested presently. This is the gentle- 
man who had the pleasant conversation with Tow- 
ers yesterday, on the porch, about the rattlesnakes. 
He wears an old brown sack-coat. His boots are 
drawn on outside his pantaloons, and they are very 
big, and stout, and rough, and reach up to his 
knees : he bought them as a special defence against 
the rattlesnake. On his head he has a broad- 
brimmed, black, slouch hat. (h\ liis shoulders lie 
has the aforesaid large roll. In his right hand he 



94 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

has a stick of laurel, witli portions of the root at- 
tached, and which is as tall as himself. Tied to his 
waist behind is a bit of sheepskin w4th th6 wool on 
it, that he may have something soft to sit down 
upon when he rests himself in the wilderness. You 
perceive he goes in for the conveniences of life. On 
the whole survey of this gentleman, you would say 
that he was the make and look of a man to lift or 
carry a heavy weight, or to pull up a sapling by its 
roots — to hit a hard blow; good at knocking down 
and dragging out ; but not the best show of a man 
for a hard walk, or climbing mountains, or getting 
well through a half-mile brake of the rhododendron. 
This is Mr. Butcut. 

That thin, sinewy, hard, tough-looking gentleman, 
resting himself upon his sound leg, which is his left, 
and a-tiptoe on his right, which is his broken one, 
shortened and stiffened at the knee, is Mr. Triptole- 
mus Todd — our Murad the Unlucky. In consider- 
ation of his lameness, it has been decreed that he 
shall carry no burden ; yet of his own accord he 
has mounted Powell's rifle, the muzzle of which he 
has pointed right in among us ; but, as he is un- 
doubtedly the most heedless man in the United 
States, we have taken care that there shall be no 
priming in the pan. This remarkable gentleman's 
mind has been, somehow or other, impressed with 
an extraordinary idea of the wonderful and amazing 
in regard to the Fairfax stone, and he is now look- 



THE DALE ON THK POTOMAC. 95 

ing away off up the dale, as far as possible, to see 
if he can't discover it. He has a confused idea in 
his mind that this Fairfax stone is the biggest thing 
of its sort in the state of Yii-ginia; but he has no 
definite idea about it : it may be like the rock of 
Gibraltar, or the rock of ages ; it may be a basaltic 
pillar, like Lot's wife, or it may be a great, huge 
tablet, upon Avhich some boundary hieroglyphics 
have been carved. Of course, therefore, he has no 
very definite idea of the sort of thing he's looking 
for. Just at this moment something vague looms 
up before his intent gaze into the distance, and his 
face is all ablaze with excitement as he exclaims, 
stretching his long, sinewy arm far before him, with 
his fingers spread out, and all pointing difterent 
ways — ''''Fellows^ yonder' s Fairfax's stone /" Mu- 
rad is a light, wiry man, of some five feet ten 
inches in stature ; and, without going into particu- 
lars, we will only say of him that he has a look of 
exposure about him, as if the heavens — cold and 
hot — the suns of August and the snows of Decem- 
ber — had been contending for him for many years, 
with such equal success, that neither of them had 
been able to take him entirely. His dress is a very 
indifi'erent one. It is torn in several places already ; 
and the fear is that before we get back he will have 
none of it, and that we shall have to paint him, or 
rather stain him with the juice of berries, to pre- 



96 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

serve him from absolute exposure — fix him up like 
Prince Yortigern — 

"A painted vest Prince Yortigern had on, 
Which from a naked Pict his sire had won !" 

To tell the whole truth in regard to Murad, there 
never was a man that went upon an expedition of 
any sort with so little preparation and under such 
unlucky circumstances. He had but one suit of 
woollen clothes with him, all the rest being light 
summer linens, of no use here. His pocket-book, 
with some bank-notes in it, he left behind upon his 
table, and had only a small purse with some six or 
seven dollars of silver in it. He had a note in bank 
for a thousand dollars, due three days after he left 
home, and for which he had made no provision ; 
and, in the hurry of shaving himself to get off in 
time, he had cut a great gash in his cheek, which 
gave him a look as of a sabre-cut received years 
ago at some such battle as Borodino or Waterloo, 
or on Pompey's side at Pharsalia, where Csesar's 
veterans aimed at the face. — But enough of Mr. 
Todd : the reader will now be able to picture him 
sufiiciently well for the purposes of this narrative. 

The next gentleman that we shall introduce is 
Doctor Adolphus Blandy. You see him there over 
on the other side of this little rivulet, the Potomac, 
in the act of taking an affectionate leave of that 
powerful dapple-gray with the bobbed tail. He 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 9T 

has just imprinted a kiss upon the soft muzzle of 
tlie gray. Ilis gentle heart is touched that Kinaldo 
has to be committed to the rude mercy of the wild 
beasts of Canaan for so many days ; and with a tear 
of repentance that he brought him here, and a sigh 
of regret that he has to leave him, has made his 
farewells — half in fear he shall never see Kinaldo 
again this side of horse-heaven. The doctor is a 
very dainty gentleman, and given much to personal 
elegance of life. He is equipped at all points. His 
large boots come fully up to the knee, and they are 
soft and pliable, made of the best French leather. 
His doublet-coat is substantial, with many conveni- 
ent pockets, and fits him comfortably. He has a 
quarter-dollar rough straw-hat, tied round with a 
red riband in a good bow-knot. As he is near- 
sighted, he wears a pair of gold spectacles. Blandy 
is a large, fine-looking man, and he is of an easy 
and gracious presence. There is a sort of disdain 
about him of the big wallet that he has strapped to 
his shoulders; he seems to feel that it should be 
borne by a menial. He has evidently been trained 
to a life of luxurious ease — like Dives, has been 
clothed in purple and fine linen, and fed daily upon 
dainties. Ennuied with indulgence, he has come 
into the wilderness, to purchase, at the expense of 
its hardships, a new zest to his existence — a zest 
which the fortune of his condition can not other- 
wise afford him. — But enough of Blandy. Let us 

5 



98 THE BLACKWATEK CHKONICLE. 

picture to you another gentleman, ^ — 'remarkable 
among the sons of men — also among their daugh- 
ters. 

There, off at the edge of the vale, at the foot of a 
branching tree, stands one who is no bad idea of the 
famous knight of La Mancha, if you would only 
suppose the immortal Don to have been not quite 
so raw-boned as history has recorded him. This 
gentleman is somewhat tall, and of a loose and 
dangling aspect, in keeping with the somewhat care- 
less ease of his character. To look at him now, as 
he stands, you w^ould suppose him in the act of pro- 
pitiating the god of the wilderness with votive offer- 
ings ; for he has just finished hanging up on the 
lowermost branches of that beautiful and fairest 
tree all the saddles and bridles, and other horse- 
equipments, ro welled spurs and whips, &c. ; and 
with his large and lustrous eye (" heaven-eyed crea- 
ture," as Wordsworth calls Coleridge) resting in 
pleasure upon the picturesque grouping he has ef- 
fected of them, you easily imagine him some deep 
enthusiast of the forest, hanging his votive offerings 
upon the wilderness-god's shrine. Lingering he 
stops, absorbed in what he has done ; then turns 
slowly away, and having reached the party in the 
middle of the dale, he exclaims earnestly, " Well, 
gentlemen, I don't think the wild beasts can eat up 
our saddles and bridles, spurs and whips, any how 
— no matter what they may accomplish upon our 



THE DALE ON THE POTOMAC. 101 

like manner as Powell — each with bis rifle and 
poiicli. 

But we are dallying too long here in the dale — 
we must up and away! Let us begin tbe march, 
however, in ajiother chapter. 



102 



THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 







CHAPTER YIII 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 



Powell is in the lead followed by Conway, and 
we all start with a shout upon our walk — jumping 
the baby Potomac with a bound, and falling into a 
line of single file — winding through the long grass 
by a track made by the deer coming down into the 
dale to drink. The Signer waved his frying-pan 
aloft, and shouted out gayly the burden of some old 
hurrah song. The Master doubled up his hand and 
blew upon it for a buglet. Peter capered along 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 103 

nimbly, in dancing measure, like a fairy on the 
green — big wallet and all. Trip threw out his 
game leg, sweeping it against the tall grass, as a 
mower sweeps his scythe. And the Doctor took his 
last lingering look of Kinaldo — waved his lily hand 
and sighed adieu — 

"Adieu, for evermore, my love, 

And adieu, for evermore!" 

The horses snorted and plunged around us, with 
their tails flung over their backs, and hovered 
along our line, until we came to the belt of laurel 
that girts the edge of the meadow, when they 
wheeled, and left us to our fate — and we them to 
theirs. In a few moments we were breaking our 
way through the thick tangled branches of the 
laurel, and in mud and water half up to our knees. 
But we fought the way gallantly, and, gaining the 
firm groutid, began the ascent of the mountain by 
a winding deer-track — the same we had followed 
through the dale. 

About half a mile up we halted by the little Elk- 
lick — a deep and wood-embosomed gouge — as the 
hunters called it — in the side of the mountain, filled 
with black marsh-ooze, in which were little pools of 
stagnant, saltish water. Here the boldest held his 
breath for awhile, in expectation of getting a shot at 
a deer. But whatever chance there might have been 
for this, it was soon destroyed by the loud outcries 
of Mr. Butcut, who was yet some distance down the 



104 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

mountain. Presently that gentleman came up, with 
his face about the color of a full-blown peony, the 
perspiration rolling down from him, and blowing 

hard like an over-driven horse. " Oh! I'll be 

if I can stand tliis," he gasped out vehemently. 
'' By the Apostle Paul ! gentlemen" — (Peter is very 
familiar with Shakspeare, and is the best amateur 
actor of high tragedy in our country to-day ; had 
he gone on the stage early in life, he would have 
undoubtedly acquired an unsurpassed name in our 
theatrical annals) — " By the Apostle Paul ! gentle- 
men," he exclaimed in a manner unconsciously 
tragic, " this mountain has cast more terror into the 
soul of Richard than he can w^ell endure." And re- 
lapsing immediately into the commonplace, he went 
on. '' And don't you all know well enough, gentle- 
men, that I'm rather thick- winded at best, and here 
you have fairly run away from me up this infernal, 
all-fired hill, as you call it — hill indeed ! Powell, 
how far are we from the top ?" 

"Not more than a mile or so, I reckon, Mr. 
Butcut." 

"A mile or so! There it is — I knew it would 
be this ^yaj. Fellows, let's turn back." This he 
said bigly. It was received with a burst of derision. 
" Let me make a proposition. If you turn back I'll 
agree to pay all the expenses of the expedition, 
from home and back." 

" Fiddle-de-de !" said one. 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 105 

^''Devdl take you and all expenses of all sorts!" 
said another. 

"IS-ot for your whole estate, in fee simple !" said 
a third. 

''m money can buy us!" said Triptolemus. 

"Hear me, gentlemen," said Mr. Butcut, entreat- 
ingly, "of course I had no idea that the money 
could influence you. I didn't mean that. I'll give 
the money to any charity you may designate. And 
Powell and Conway, I'll give you five dollars more 
than you were to get." 

"mt so !" said the artist, "you shall do no such 
thing !" 

"We don't want anything more than was agreed 
upon !" said both Powell and Conway. 

"Ugh, uh!" said Triptolemus. "You advised 
me not to come, did you !" 

" You'll get along better, Peter, after the first 
blow or two !" 

"The acquirit vires eundo, will apply to you 
after awhile, But, don't entertain any despair!" 

"I can't stand it, gentlemen, I tell you, and carry 
this load on my back— I'm no horse !" 

It will be perceived by the reader, that Mr. But- 
cut made a very determined attempt to bi-eak up 
the expedition, here at the Elk-lick, but all to no 
avail. His mutinous designs were promptly crushed 
in the bud. It being clear that nothing was to be 



106 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

gained in this way, he was determined that he 
would get rid of his burden. 

" Well, gentlemen," he said, laughing, " I confess 
that I've failed in my vigorous effort to turn you 
back : that's no go^ certainly : — of course I wasn't 
in earnest. But really, seriously speaking, I'm no 
horse, and can't carry all this load." 

" What's a blanket and a great-coat to a stout 
man like you, two feet and a half at least over the 
shoulders ?" 

" If you think it's nothing, suppose you just feel 
it." Here he unstrapped his wallet, and handed it 
round for inspection. It was, in fact, a great deal 
heavier than any of us had imagined, large as it 
looked. So it was determined that he must be 
lightened of his load. Accordingly the wallet was 
unrolled — and no wonder it was so heavy ; for 
instead of containing merely a single blanket and 
a great-coat, the blanket was found to be a large 
new double one, and in addition to this, there was 
an old, thick- wadded coverlet of a bed, commonly 
called a Yankee-blanket, that had been used as a 
saddle-blanket, until it had grown doubly heavy 
from the grease and perspiration it had accumulated 
in a long horseback service. Peter, very provident 
of his creature comforts, with the intention of being 
extra luxurious when in camp at night, had very 
quietly, and unknown to the party, secured this 
treasure to his own use. It was really, therefore, 



THE MAKCH INTO THE CANAAN. 107 

no such great wonder that the first half-mile of the 
Backbone had been too much for him. Such a 
mountain is a pretty stiff encounter for a man of no 
superfluous flesh, and the soundest lungs — and so 
the lightest of us found it ; but a thick-set, stout- 
built, two hundred pounder of a gentleman, yet in 
the soft condition, and with not the best breathing 
apparatus in the world — a butcut like But, will 
attest the quality of his metal, whenever he at- 
tempts to match himself against the Bone of the 
Alleganies, and that, too, even though he has not 
a heavy-wadded blanket additional in his wallet. 

The reader will understand now, that the only 
thing really the matter with Mr. Botecote, was that 
he had overloaded himself, as was intimated when we 
were down in the dale of the Potomac. So, hanging 
the discountenanced encumbrance upon a limb of 
the nearest tree, he took heart again, and once more 
grew animated with all the hope of the Blackwater. 

" Come, move on, men," he exclaimed, as he 
strapped on his shoulder his now diminished bur- 
den. " This is something like. I can stand it now 
with any of you. Move on, Powell." 

And the expedition moved again. It was hard 
work in good earnest. But we went on up the 
rugged steep, scrambling our way as best we could, 
now through the thick underwood, now in among 
great masses of rock, and over fallen trees so de- 
composed that they would not bear your weight, 



lOS THl Kl \rK\V\TKK OHKONIOI.K. 

until wo roaohod what soomod to bo tho top ot' tlio 
iiiountaiii. Horo thoso wlu> woro I'oroniost oallod a 
halt, and sat down to rost upon a mossy li^g duit 
iniboddod you tor about a toot. Tho otliors oanio 
strauLilinixin — Triptolon\us talliui; in, with liis arms 
sproad out bot'oro him, and his lauio log out in tho 
air behind, as though it didn't bolong to him, and 
crviuir out tv? ho intohod in. *' I sav, follows, is this 
Fairfax's stono? Ugh — uh ! lloro 1 ami" 

** Fairfax's stone !" said Peter, getting it out as 
his breath would allow. " Fairtax wouldn't have 
climbed this hill for all the six millions and a half 
acres of his inheritance. I take it he was a man of 
too much sense. Heavens — but Fm nearly gone! 
How tar are wo tVom tho horses. Powell .'" 

*' About two miles, I take it. Its about two miles, 
Conaway, up to here i Yes — so I thought." 

**Come, move on, men. There must be no muti- 
nous oonvorsation indulged in. Peter's tor a revolt 
again. 1 see," said the Signer. 

Peter was now rested, and he resented tho impu- 
tation with many valorous words. 

*' Xo. gentlemen, no such tritle as this wilderness 
shall prevent me trom tishing in the Plaokwater I 
It isn't more than two or three miles oli\ Powoll. is 
it! And down hill, vou sav, from hereT' 

'• Wo are over the worst of it uinv, ^fr. Putout.'' 
Siiid Powell. 

** Move on men — move on men," said Peter, 



THK \fAl'J:jJ INTO THK CANAA.V. 1 OCi 

*'bijt don't go too faat — I'rn afraid Afr. Todd can't 
keep Tip with us." 

**Ugh — ah! Never mind me, I can get along 
with any of yon." And here Trip pitched over a 
rock and disappeared fhis game leg la«t; into a 
thicket, langhing onthiHu^k — uh / and pre^iently 
he came intr>-line again, aa if nothing had occurred 
more than he looked for. 

The wilderness was growing wilder. We had, 
some time Bince, IffHt all trace of anything like even 
a deer-path. Still, pleasantly, and in fine apiritg, 
we pnrsned onr way. Now we had to climb some 
Bteep hill-side, clinging to the nndergrowth to pnll 
onrselves np, and now we wonld come up again.st 
a barrier of fallen trees — some of them gix feet high 
as they lay along the gronnd, and coated with rno^.s 
half a foot thick — some so decomposed that they 
recreated themselves in the yonng hemlocks and 
firs that grew np out of thern — some more recently 
fallen, with great monnds of earfh and stone heaved 
np with their roots; these monnds sometimes cov- 
ered over by other trees thrown across them, and 
thus affording shelter to the wild animals from the 
snows and storms of winter. Over all these we 
wonld climb and roll ourselves across; and some- 
times, such obstruction did they present to onr 
course, we would be obliged to make a detour 
ronnd for the length of a qnarter of a mile may be, 
and find ourselves only advanced a hundred pacea 



110 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

on the straight line of our route. It was thus we 
went along — up-hill and clown — now along the 
side of a rib of the mountain — now over its cone, 
and now along it — down through deep ravines and 
up out of them, and scarcely able at any time to 
see further ahead than some twenty yards, so thick 
were the leaves about us ; and not often able to 
catch a glimpse of the sun, so dense was the mass 
of foliage uinbrellaed out everywhere above us. 
Still there was a great wild delight in it all ; and 
by this time we had become somewhat inured to 
the work ; we were beginning to improve in con- 
dition, and we felt our sinews and muscles coming 
into better play every step we took. 

After awhile, thus pursuing our steady advance, 
we came to a small rivulet, trickling its way down 
a shallow ravine, and evidently making its course 
to the west. This was a little rill that sent forth its 
mite, high up in these loftiest regions, to form tlie 
waters of the Cheat river ; the Cheat falling into 
the Monongahela — the Monongahela into the Ohio 
■ — the Ohio into the Mississippi — and so to the 
great Atlantic reservoir. It was clear, now, that 
we were on the other side of the Backbone. 

"This water, gentlemen," said Powell, "is ma- 
kino: for the Blackwater. We are across the Bone." 

" How far now, Powell, before we reach the 
falls ?" asked Peter. 

"Well, I reckon about four miles — maybe." 



THE MAKCH INTO THE CANAAN. Ill 

'' Four miles ! It can't be. It's no such thing. 
Why, Mr. Powell, didn't you say distinctly, that it 
was but four miles altogether from the place we 
left the horses." 

"Oh, no — I didn't say that! I told you, we 
could bring the horses along to within about 
four miles of the falls — over to another glade, 
which we will come to before long." 

" I'm deceived, gentlemen. "VYe have all been 
deceived by these men. Conway is this the case 
that Powell says ?" 

" Powell knows the country better than I do. 
He's nearly right, I guess. I should suppose now, 
we are about four miles away." 

" Gentlemen, hold on — stop," said Peter, "I've 
a proposition to make." 

" You had better not be left behind," said the 
Signor, "you might get lost out here. Keep up 
with the line." 

On we went, increasing our pace a little, for the 
day was hying westward ; and if we intended to 
reach the Blackwater by nightfall, there was no 
time to waste. 

" This is intolerable !" said Peter. " It's all non- 
sense — not a particle of sense it. I say — hold on, 
I've a proposition to make." 

" I don't think we are treating him right," said 
the Doctor, a little tired himself. " It isn't fair — he 



112 THE BLACKWATER CHR0NICL1|. 

might be suffering. We ought to halt, and hear 
what he has to say." 

As Peter's voice was strong — altogether unim- 
paired, there was a rather general impression that 
there was a good deal of" good walking in him yet. 
But we halted and threw ourselves down upon the 
moss. 

"What's the proposition? Let's have it while 
we are resting — for there's no time to lose." 

" Well, gentlemen, its strikes me we ought to 
encamp." 

This was met with a general dissent. 

"It's my opinion we are lost," continued Peter, 
" decidedly lost. These men have deceived us. 
They start out by telling us that its only four miles 
from where we left our horses to the Blackw^ater. 
Well, we left them at one o'clock, and it's now five 
by my watch. We've been four hours in coming 
here — and Pm nearly dead at that! l^ow they 
tell us they've got yet more than four miles to go ! 
I don't believe they know themselves where we are. 
I believe we are lost, and that we are walking 
about here for nothing. Powell, tell me, didn't 
you say just now that this little rivulet was one of 
the sources of the Black water ?" 

"Yes — and I think so still, Mr. Butcut." 

" Only think so ! There it is, gentlemen. He 
don't know where he is. I don't believe we are 
near the Blackwater." 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 113 

" I^or I either," said Triptolemus, who grew un- 
easy at the idea of being lost — remembering the 
story of the lost man, and the bones that were found 
out here. "If I could have seen Fairfax's stone, I 
might have had some confidence. How can this 
little stream make the Blackwater, when it's as 
white and clear as any water we have seen ?" 

" Yes, Murad's got it ! How can it be, Powell ?" 

" Well, gentlemen, it's no use talking. I am in 
the right direction. Don't you say so, Conaway?" 
■ " Yes, I do." 

" Well, that's all," continued Powell, a little miffed 
for the moment, " that I can do for you. There a'n't 
any finger boards out here to point out the way. 
All I can do for you is, to take a general direction 
right, and I know I must hit the Blackwater some- 
where — a mile or two higher up, or lower down." 

"But we've been four hours getting here, and 
have come but four miles, you think ; and have four 
more to go, you say !" 

" Well, no man need expect to see the falls of the 
Blackwater without some sharp walking. A mile 
or a mile and a half an hour, in a straight line — 
which would make two or three, twisting about as 
we have to go — ^is about as much as we can make 
out here. I could have brought you a straighter 
course — down through the big laurel, you know, 
Conaway — but if ever you once got into that, we 
know you would, be glad enough to be out again! 



114 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

— and so we have been trying to head the laurel as 
much as possible." 

''Eight, men' — you are right," said the Signor. 

" I am not so entirely certain," resj)onded Adol- 
phus, " but we must abide our fate now." 

"Right— all right." 

" I withdraw what I said, men," observed Peter, 
it just occurring to him that if the guides should 
take it into their heads to leave us, we would be in 
rather a bad way. "I was very much heated just 
now, and a good deal blown — that's the truth ; and 
the mind, you know, Powell, will take the hue and 
tone of the feelings. This little rest has put it all 
right, though." 

" Handsomely done, and philosophically account- 
ed for." 

"Move on, Powell — it's all right!'.' 

The Signor waved his frying-pan encouragingly, 
and the Master blew away upon his hand-bugle. 
With restored spirit, the expedition once more 
dashed along through the forest. Up started three 
or four deer from the bushes, and, showing the un- 
derside white of their tails as they threw them over 
their backs, with a leap and a bound they were lost 
in the forest. Murad ran after them a little way 
out of the line, and pitching down presently over 
some rough ground, his lame leg up in the air, he 
laughed out his "Ugh — uh !" and gave up the 
chase, saying, as he fell into line again — 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 115 

^' Thej are monstrous swift. How the fury they 
get over the rough ground so fast, I can't see !" 

"They were born so," replied old Conway. 

" It's a gift to them," said Powell " Every ani- 
mal has his gift. It's their protection. The bear 
climbs, and the deer runs." 

The hunters discoursing their lore of the forest, 
w^e came down to the edge of some swampy ground, 
and found ourselves in front of a wide stretch of 
laurel, tangled and thick everywhere around. To 
-cross it — as it was clear it could not be avoided in 
any way — the hunters looked about for the best 
place to go in. At length, finding a spot that bid 
the fairest, they made their way into the brake, and 
desperately after them we all followed, as best we 
could. Such pulling and tugging — such twisting, 
plunging, breaking, crashing, and tearing— 

"I never remember ever to have heard" 

or seen. Here was one held fast by his wallet, and 
twisting about like an eel to get himself loose ; thei-e 
another who had got upon a huge fallen tree — thus 
avoiding the laurel by walking along its surface as 
far as it reached through the swamp ; but it was so 
decomposed, that presently he sank into it up to his 
arms — and he wvas stuck. Here another who had 
reached a stream, walking in it as far as in its wind- 
ings it kept a course that corresponded with our 
direction. There one grown entirely desperate, and 



116 



THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 



endeavoring to break his way through by main 
strength. The hnnters took it more knowingly, and 
would search about for the thinnest places — some- 
times going back upon their tracks when they would 
get into a very thick part of the brake, and trying 
it another way. 









H^'^l^jf} 




To tell how at last we all did get out, overtaxes 
any powers of description that I possess. Peter suc- 
ceeded eventually, and threw himself down on the 
ground entirely exhausted, murmuring something 
about the other side of Jordan, and the laurel be- 
ing « hard road to travel. The Prior came ashore 
with his big knife open in his hand, having at length, 
— like Wit in Moore's song — ^^ cut his bright way 
through." How Triptolemus got through has never 



THE MAECH INTO THE CANAAN. 117 

yet been fairly ascertained ; but it is believed by 
the whole expedition that he fell through the most 
of the way — for whenever we had any glimpse of 
him, his head was down and his feet up. Somehow 
or other the passage was successfully accomplished ; 
and, after resting sufficiently, we took up the line 
of nrarch, with a unanimous request of the guides 
that they would avoid all the laurel that it was 
possible, by any skill of their woodcraft, to get 
round. 

" And this is the beautiful rhododendron, Adol- 
phus, that you and I have been trying so hard to 
grow," said the Master. 

" I'll pull it all up as soon as I get home," replied 
Galen spitefully — "if, indeed, I shall ever see that 
blessed spot again." 

" No — I'll now have a thicket of it at the Priory, 
if it is only that I may be able to demonstrate, when 
I grow old, the miracles I shall recount of this ex- 
pedition." 

"A good idea," said the artist. "I'll make a 
grand national painting of it, and call it ' The Pas- 
sage of the Laurel.' " 

" And hang it up by Leutze's ' Passage of the 
Delaware.' " 

" Couldn't you put Fairfax's stone somewhere in 
the picture?" inquired Trip. 

" Oh, certainly," returned the Signor, " and draw 
you, Trip, pitching into it!" 



118 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

" Have Butcut stuck up to his shoulders in a de- 
composed hemlock, and a bear after him !" 

" A rattlesnake, too !" 

" A panther or so !" 

"And some owls about!" 

"I'll try and do the subject justice, gentlemen," 
replied the Signor. " ]^o historical feature shall be 
left out." 

Thus commenting on the passage of the laurel, 
we moved on ; and after a while, descending a long 
hillside, we came to the head of a glade, through 
which a stream of some size ran — its waters of a 
light-chocolate hue. We were very much jaded by 
this time ; and so we threw ourselves down upon the 
soft, beautiful grass, knee-high everywhere around, 
and for half an hour enjoyed such grateful rest as 
seldom comes to the sons and daughters of men 
who stay in civilized regions ; it recompensed even 
the laurel, so exquisite was the rest, and so gorgeous 
the bower where we took it ! 

•' And then he said, ' How sweet it were 
A fisher or a hunter here, 

A gardener in the shade, 
Still wand'ring with an easy mind 
To build a household fire, and find 

A home in every glade ! 

" • What days and what sweet years! — Ah me! 
Our life were life indeed, with thee 

So passed in quiet bliss, 
And all the while,' said he, ' to know 
That we were in a world of wo, 

On such an earth as this !' 



THE MARCH INTO THE CANAAN. 119 

"And then he sometimes interwove 
Fond thoughts about a father's love : 

'For there,' said he, 'are spun 
Around the heart such tender ties. 
That our own children to our eyes 
Are dearer than the sun. 

" 'Sweet Ruth ! and could you go with me, 
My helpmate in the woods to be, 

Our camp at night to rear — 
Or run, my own adopted bride, 
A sylvan huntress at my side. 
And drive the flying deer!' 

"'Beloved Ruth!'" 

Such thoughts filled the teeming brain of the Prior, 
as he lay half sleeping in the beautiful glade. — But 
we can not follow him in his dreams of wild bliss ; 
for we must go into another chapter, and bivouac 
for the night. 



120 THE BLAOKWATER CHRONICLE. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 

While yet the sun in liis westward journey had 
but about an hour to go, before he left the Canaan 
to darkness and the expedition — not to mention the 
bears and owls, &c.,. about — a snake stole into our 
bower, and disturbed the heavenly repose of the 
glade. A very harmless, inoffensive little grass- 
snake — polished and slippery, disturbed by the 
rolling about of some one of the party, wound itself 
along swiftly over one of the extended arms of 
Doctor Blandy, as he lay sprawled out upon his 
back — gazing up into the heavens, and dreaming 
dreams of the balmy summer's eve. Galen sprang 
to his feet, and jumped some ten paces off into the 
meadow. Whereupon we all did the same. It was 
a rattlesnake at least to our startled imagination ! — 
until we saw, to our shame, that it was not. Being 
on our feet, however, the word was given to take 
up the line of march again — and off we went: 
the guides being of opinion, that by crossing the 
ridge before us, we would come upon the Blackwater 
by night. 



THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 121 

We made our way ont of the glade, encountering 
but a small strip of laurel ; and once more filed 
into the dense wild forest. As we advanced we 
grew more and more silent. We were evidently 
beginning to flag in spirit. It was our first day, 
and we were not yet inured to the toil. Every 
now and then some startled deer would give a little 
life to the party — but it would not last, and we 
trudged along almost noiseless over the mossy 
ground. Instead of the country's giving indication 
of our being near a stream such as the Blackwater, 
it was growing more hilly and broken ever since 
we left tlie glade. The shades of evening too, were 
fast closing in upon us. Something was wrong — 
we ought certainly to have reached the Blackwater 
before this. The hunters were evidently in doubt 
about their course, and tliey now held frequent con- 
s iltations with each other. They had told us before 
we set ofiF fnjin the dale of the Potomac, that they 
would certainly take us to our destination by night, 
and tliey were anxious to accomplish their purpose ; 
they feared their skill as guides would be called in 
question if they failed in what tiiey had been so 
certain of accomplishing. It was now near sun- 
down, and we were hemmed in, on all sides, by 
mountains. The impression that we were really 
lost was uppermost in the minds of all of us; and 
presently we held a general council — the result of 
which was, that if we did not come to some indica- 

6 



122 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

tion of the Blackwater, when we crossed the next 
ridge, we would encamp for the night. 

Crossing over this ridge, everything looked as 
before. It was all the same ragged, dense, dark, 
deep, grand gloom of mountainous forest that we 
had left behind us — no appearance of laurel — the 
sure harbinger of water ; no such sloping down of 
the hills anywhere, as looked like the descent into 
a valley, such as a stream of any size would find its 
way through ; and above all, listen as intently as 
we might, no sound of a waterfall (such as we were 
assured would greet our ears from the river we 
sought) was mingled with the song of the evening 
wind. Therefore there was but one voice in the gen- 
eral assembly of the expedition — and that was to 
halt for the night, and take counsel of to-morrow's 
sun as to our direction. Finding a little trickling 
rill in the bed of a rugged ravine close at hand, we 
resolved upon taking up our abode b}^ its waters 
for the night. Accordingly the most appropriate 
spot we could find was selected ; and, throwing 
down our burdens in a pile, we commenced the 
construction of a camp, with a great deal of busy 
bustle. As the reader unacquainted with the ways 
of a wilderness life, may take some interest in 
knowing how this was done, we will enter, for his 
benefit, into the particulars. 

In the first place, then, the hunters set to work 
and gathered together a number of dried logs and 



THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 123 

limbs of trees, that they found scattered about the 
forest, making a j^ile some ten or twelve feet long, 
and three or four feet high. They then picked out 
the driest bark and branches of jMne they could 
find, and laid them about through the pile. Kext 
tliey raised some fire by striking sparks from the 
flints of tlieir rifles into tow, and carefully applying 
this to the pine bark and other combustible wood 
they had gathered ; it was not long before we had 
our wood-pile in a blaze—which was soon in- 
creased into a spreading and swelling flame, by the 
young hemlocks and fir trees that we were busily 
engaged for some time in cutting down and throw- 
ing upon the pile. 

While a part of the force were engaged in this 
work, others were busy in arranging the camp. 
The ground was cleared away in front of the fire, 
and this place was covered over with the softest 
branches of hemlock that we could gather— two 
of the party being out cutting for the purpose. A 
large log was brought and laid along the back of 
the camp, and this was covered over to the height 
of t\yo or three feet with hemlock and fir brancires, 
serving as a sort of wall to protect us from any 
intrusion from that side, of beasts, or what not, that 
might be disposed to invade us during the night. 
The camp was so arranged, that when we slept, mir 
heads would be against this barrier, and our feet to 
the fire. The sides also were filled up between the 



124 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

trees with branches. Wlien it was all completed, 
we had a tenement — a lodge in the wilderness — 
the ground floor of which was hemlock branches a 
foot deep, three sides, also, hemlock and fir, and 
the fourth side a wood-pile, twelve feet long, four 
feet high, and all afire. And the roof above us : — 

" 'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale, 
And all its bright spangles — quoth Allen-a-Dale !" 

and where will you find a grander in a king's palace. 

Our rifles, bags of provisions, cofi'ee-pot, tin-cups, 
and frjing-pan — all we had, were safely deposited 
in one corner of the lodge. The wallets were un- 
rolled, and the blankets, great coats, &c., &c. — 
including the knives and pistols, were thrown out 
for use. Having cut down as many small trees as 
would serve to keep the fire going for the night, we 
now assembled in the camp, and commenced prep- 
arations for supper, for which we were by this 
time about as ravenous as the beasts of a menagerie 
about feeding time. The bread, biscuits, and cold 
ham, were brought forth. Tlie sugar was untied. 
Conway sat about preparing the cofi'ee : Powell 
started the frying-pan on the hot embers, and soon 
had it hissing and crackling with the slices of fat 
middling of bacon with which he filled it ; until at 
length the more delicate aroma of the hemlock was 
lost to our noses, in the ascendency of the bacon-side. 

Those of us who were not engaged in these en- 
ticing preparations, were lying about on the hem- 



THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 125 

lock, enjoying ourselves in the abandonment of 
forest undress — that is, in our stocking feet, with 
ungirded vest, unsuspendered ; and spread out 
around, in all the various attitudes that it was pos- 
sible for a set of tired men to stretch themselves in. 
At length the supper was announced as ready — 
and then it was devoured. To say that it was 
merely eaten up, would be a preposterous defama- 
tion of any ideas of eating, such as the word gen- 
erally conveys in civilized life. In an exceeding 
short space of time, of all the liberal preparation, 
there were, at all events, no visible evidences re- 
maining — except the table-service — the tin and 
the iron. It was as if a set of jugglers had suddenly 
juggled it out of sight — caused it all to evanish. 
It convinced my mind more thoroughly than any- 
thing I have witnessed in my somewhat varied life 
— that man is, by nature, a wild beast. Reduce 
him into his original elements — take off all this 
varnish, this overlarding of civilization — jDut him 
out in the Canaan here for about a month, and 
what beast is there of the wild that will out-raven 
him ! Poetry, philosophy, arts, and science — these 
have humanized him ; and made him, even when 
he is most starved, w^ave his hand to his friend, and 
with a smile upon his countenance, say. Take the 
first grah^ as did the famished Signor to the rapa- 
cious Butcut — which made the yet unsatisfied 
Blandy hand over the last slice of the niiddling to 



126 THE BLACKWATEK CHEONICLE. 

lame Triptolemiis, and belie himself, when he said, 
Take that^ Trip^ Fm not a-hungry. The reader 
will perceive, from this, that the wilderness had 
not yet made us altogether savage ; also he will 
perceive though, that its tendency is toward the 
dehumanization of man — the resolving him into 
his original simple element of wild beast. 

I would take advantage of this occasion — all the 
great historians do so — to philosophize a little upon 
the absolute necessity there is for good government 
over mankind — that there should be good laws, 
and firmly maintained — how stability and order, 
and the social decorums, that make nations refined 
and great, and keep them so, are thereby only up- 
held : how otherwise, man will soon convert the 
garden-spots of the world into a bear-walk. These 
high corollaries I would deduce from our experience 
of the wilderness, and go to the trouble of showing 
them convincingly, with reasons manifold, were it 
not, that just at this time there is a practical teach- 
ing of them everywhere over the land, that is making 
the lesson manifest to the dullest mind — and which 
practical teaching, if not arrested, will soon convert 
the garden of our American civilization into such a 
bear-walk as the world has not yet seen. 

Be these things, however, as they may — let the 
republic tremble to its foundations, if it must — let 
political and social anarchy take it, if it has to be 
80 — there are those about who will right it, and 



THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 127 

rear its firm liead liiglier, and higher yet, to the 
skies. In the meantime, when the hurly-burly 
comes, we of this expedition have made up our 
minds to seize upon the Canaan; and with the 
knowledge we have acquired of its fastnesses — 
such as the laurel : — its gorges, narrow defiles, 
rocky precipices, and torrent passes — all its mili- 
tary availabilities — it will go hard with us if we 
don't hold it against all the other freebooters of the 
United States — let their name be leo-ion ! 

However, upon this point we must keep our 
counsel, or we might be frustrated in our enterprise 
by the rapine of the times. A wise ma?i is his own 
lantern. 

In the meantime, the supper was gone — juggled, 
or jugged away; and the animals to all appear- 
ances appeased. We now gathered into the inner 
penetralia of our hold; and stowed ourselves away 
in every violation of the rules of ceremony known 
to any of the nations of Christendom, or of the 
heathen — smoking cigars or pipes — telling stories, 
and singing songs, of love, war, romance, the chase, 
intermixed with our national anthems, and local 
ballads, pathetic or humorous, now in the harmony 
of Germany or of Italy, of France or old romantic 
Spain, and now to the strains of some low, dulcet, 
African refrain. Thus were passed the first watches 
of the night, until, at length, tired nature yielded to 
the omnipotence of sleep ; and, hushed by the night 



128 



THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 



winds murmuring among the immemorial trees, 
while the blazing pile at our feet illumined the 
forest around and above us with its silver and 




I 



s 



golden flame, imparting a magic sheen to the leaves 
and branches of the woods, until it all seemed the 
lighted tracery of some vast Gothic minster of the 



V 



THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 129 

Avild ; and with nothing above ns bnt tlie vault of 
heaven, studded with its glittering stars (which we 
couldn't see) — and nothing beneath us but the 
spicy smelling hemlock — and nothing over us but 
a blanket — we fell asleep, as sweetly and confi- 
dingly here in' the wild, as children beneath the 
roof-tree of some guardian home. 

And so, tired reader, good night! May your 
sleep be ever as safe in the city, and your dreams 
never woi'se than those that haunted the hemlock 
of our lost expedition. 

6* 



r' 



130 THE BLACKWATEK CnRONICLE. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE BLACKWATER FOUND A GREAT NUMBER OF TROUT 

TAKEN MR. BUTCUT FRIES SOME FISH. 

About daybreak, when our sleep was at tlie high- 
est, and the atmosphere the most chilly — the 
twilight just emerging from the night — Doctor 
Adolphus Blandy awoke from his dreams. Sleep- 
ing next to Mr. Butcut — and that gentleman, taking 
good care of himself even in his sleep, having con- 
trived to appropriate to himself, during the night, 
the blanket that warmed the shoulders of Adolphus 
— the doctor woke up at this hour yawning and 
chilled. Contemplating for a while, the comforta- 
ble party around him, and particularly contempla- 
ting the exceedingly comfortable Butcot, jnst at 
this time emitting the longest drawn and most swel- 
ling notes of his horn ; and also reflecting, some- 
what bitterly may be, that all this was doubly 
enjoyed by But, at the expense of liis own shiver- 
ing discomfort — himself sacrificed to this too com- 
plete bodily satisfaction of the partner of his sleep 
—and accustomed, no doubt, himself to his own 



THE BLACKWATEK FOUND. 131 

proper share of nocturnal indulgence : thus contem- 
plating the repose around him, the devil of that 
dog-in-the-manger quality of our nature, that will 
sometimes get uppermost in the breasts of the best 
of men, arose and took possession of his soul. 

'' Aha, Mr. But !" said Galen to himself, " 3^ou 
look mighty comfortable, indeed, with every bit of 
my blanket wrapped about you — tucked in, too! 
No wonder I couldn't pull it over me. I'll fix you, 
Mr. Snug, for this,.! think. If I'm shivering here, 
you sha'n't sleep so comfortably there, and in my 
blanket, too — confound you !" 

So lie deliberately arose, and set fire to the hem- 
lock upon which we were sleeping, starting the 
flame at a point nearest to the object of his particu- 
lar malice. Having got his blaze under wa}^, he 
next picked up a hatchet, and finding a young fir- 
tree so placed tliat w^hen cut down it would fall 
with all its branches directly upon the sleepers, he 
went to work to fell it, a great deal of especial de- 
light beaming all the while from his eyes. 

The hemlock being of the Pinus species, fire 
takes hold of it rapidly, and soon the camp was in 
a blaze. The flames spreading in close proximity 
around Peter, crackling upon his ear, and flaring 
in his eye, he awoke in great terror, and aroused the 
camp with his outcries. Just at this critical mo 
ment, down came the doctor's young fir-tree, tli:it 
he had been all the while industriously hackinii* at, 



132 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

down right over the camp, with all its sweeping 
branches, trapping the party. Of course, there was 
no little commotion among iis. The fire was in- 
stantly put out, however, by a sort of instinct of 
preservation common to mankind ; and not yet 
fairly awake, and a general impression prevailing 
in the confusion that we were attacked by the wild 
animals, we seized upon the rifles, hatchets, knives, 
frying-pan, and but-ends of the burned wood-pile, 
to sell our lives as dearly as possible. Missing 
Blandy, however, who had concealed himself be- 
hind a tree, the reality of the case began to break 
upon us ; and fairly now awake, we commented 
variously upon the caricature alacrity that had been 
exhibited by the expedition in defending itself from 
the supposed assault of the beasts of the wilderness 
— and took advantage of the occasion to get break- 
fast, and make an early start for the day. 

The breakfast was a repetition of the last night's 
supper, which being said — it is enough. Present- 
ly the sun reddened the eastern sky, and the hunt- 
ers getting the direction they proposed to try their 
fortune in, we set off through the yet dank and 
dewy forest. Our way was broken and rugged, 
up and down, through ravines that were deep 
chasms, and over great fallen trees covered with 
moss and wet as a sponge. Deer we saw frequent- 
ly browsing about, and out here where perhaps they 
had never seen a human being before, they would 



THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 133 

lift lip their heads and for a while gaze at us as if 
in wonder at what it all meant. Once or twice it 
was proposed to shoot one of them, but this was 
cried down as an act of wantonness, since we were 
already burdened with as much as we could cany ; 
and, uncertain as to our being at all in the right di- 
rection, we were somewhat anxious and desirous to 
hasten on our way, while yet fresh from the night's 
rest. 

There was one part of the wiklerness which we 
traversed this morning, where we came frequently 
upon the traces of bear. Sometimes we would 
come upon the trunk of a dead tree, some hundred 
feet long, and five or six feet in diameter, scattered 
and raked about in all directions by the bears to 
get at the worms to eat. Sometimes we would 
find a cluster of trees, with the bark worn smooth, 
which the hunters told us was a certain indication 
that a family of these animals had been liere raised, 
and were no doubt now in some hollow tree or fast- 
ness not far ofi". 

Thus we walked along for several hours, proba- 
bly at no greater rate than a mile an hour, and in 
some evident disheartenment— for we were not at 
all so light of spirit as we might have been, and 
would, had we felt more certain of our course. 
Every now and then when we stopped to rest, tlie 
conversation would take a debating turn, the sub- 
ject discussed being generally the points of the 



134 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. 

compass ; one asserting that here was the north, 
and another that it was in the very opposite direc- 
tion. Peter's mind was always opposed to the 
hunters' ; if they pointed this way for north, he 
was sure to point in the opposite, and maintain his 
point of the compass with much vehement speech ; 
for he was by this time fully assured that the hunt- 
ers had no knowledge of the country — in fact 
knew nothing of wood-craft at all. These debates 
were generally wound up by some very direct re- 
mark of Triptolemus's, proclaiming it as his opinion, 
that the hunters didn't know any more than he did, 
where we were — when some one of the more dis- 
creet members of the party would have to intimate 
to Powell and Conway, that Trip didn't mean as 
much as he said, for fear they might possibly lose 
their good temper, and leave the whole expedition 
in the lurch, by deserting us upon the first favorable 
opportunity : in which event it is altogether likely 
we would have remained out in the Canaan long 
enough to have resolved ourselves into our original 
wild elements, or to have become a pile of bones. 
But Powell and Conway were good-tempered men, 
and set down to the proper account all our insinu- 
ations against their knowledge ; and generally 
retired to a little distance, and held some rational 
parley with each other upon the matter in doubt. 
At length we scrambled up a desperate hill, and 
seating ourselves down to rest on its brow, we 



THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 135 

heard Peter's voice back in the bushes, crying out 
that he couldn't stand it any longer. Presently he 
came in, out of breath, dragging himself along ; 
and sitting down on a log with an air of dogged 
resolution, great misery in his countenance, he 
swore he would go no further. 

" Gentlemen, there must be an end put to this. 
I can't stand it. It's all intolerable — terrific !" 

" Let him stay here, then," said the Signor. 
" We'll go on, and find the falls. We can then 
send one of the men back for him." 

The enterprise was growing desperate, so we 
moved along, determined to find water at all haz- 
ards, if we fell in our tracks. As we took up the 
march again, each man gave Peter a parting volley. 

"You had better struggle on. But, as long as 
you can. If you should be left here, you will 
never find the w^ay in yourself." 

" And bear it in mind, an expedition fitted out 
for y*»ur recovery might not be more fortunate than 
those to the North Pole." 

"And, But, there is a possibility that govern- 
ment mightn't think you worth discovering." 

" Mr. Grinnell couldn't be calculated on for you, 
Peter." 

" And if ever you are found, you might be a pile 
of bones — remember the lost man !" said Trip. 

"Farewell, Peter! I'm sorry to leave you, old 
fellow." 



136 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

" Go to ," said Peter, " with your blasted 

nonsense. Since yon wont stop and encamp, I'll 
show you I can walk with any of you." 

And Peter got up and followed after, not liking 
the idea of remaining by himself in the forest ; and 
thinking rightly it would be rather hazardous to be 
left behind by the party. 

About an hour after this we were walking along 
the broad top of a ridge, when one of the hunters 
stopped, and thought he heard something like the 
distant sound of water. Peanimated by the thought 
we pricked up our ears, and went on in better heart. 
But Botecote, who was really suffering a good deal, 
now came to a dead halt, and refused to move. No 
persuasion this time, nor any banter — no argument 
addressed to his hopes, nor any intimidation of any 
sort, that the inventive genius of the expedition 
could suggest — was of the least avail. The case 
this time was desperate ; and we held a council of 
war over him, the chief question being what was to 
be done with his body. He was too big to carry — 
which was the suggestion of Triptolemus — so, of 
course, that thought was dismissed ; and, besides, 
we had no idea of doing it : for we had still a lurk- 
ing belief that he was playing 'possum a little, in 
order that he might accomplish an encampment. 
Fortunately, however, and saving us from tlie des- 
perate measure of leaving him here in the forest, 
with a chance that we should not be able to find 



THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 137 

liim again, old Conway had explored the side of the 
mountain, and just now returned, saying that he 
had come to a wide belt of laurel, and that it was 
his opinion the Blackwater ran through it. 

"I knew it," said Peter. "It's just as I said, 
gentlemen. We've been enduring all this horrible 
walking all the morning, when, by going more to 
the left, we might have been in tlie Blackwater long 
ago. "Walked to death for nothing!" 

And now it was suggested that the laurel should 
be explored, the fact of the water ascertained, and 
Peter put into it, to make his way to the falls down 
the middle of the stream. This proposition was as- 
sented to, as the best the case admitted of. Ac- 
cordingly, going down to the edge of the laurel, 
and seeing Peter safely deposited in the brake — 
with some appropriate encouragement of him as he 
fought his way through — and hearing presently his 
somewhat cheerful shout, announcing his safe arri- 
val in the stream — we made our way back again 
to the top of the mountain — Powell being certain 
now that we were on the Blackwater, and that in 
the course of a mile or so we would come upon some 
of its falls. Indeed, we were now convinced that 
we heard the sound of them in the distance. 

We pursued our march along the cone of the 
ridge we were on for something better than a mile, 
when, coming to a halt, we distinctly heard a water- 
fall below us. There was no doubt about it now : 



138 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

and we descended the mountain- side with a shout. 
We met the laurel about half-way down the mount- 
ain — and breaking into it, after the necessary fight- 
ing, we filed down, one by one, along a great fir- 
tree that had, happily for us, fallen there some ten 
or twenty years before, and stepped out into the 
Blackwater, on a broad surface of rock — the very 
top itself of the falls we w^ere seeking. In a few 
minutes we fixed up our fishing-lines, and, dotted 
along the edge of the fall which was about ten feet 
high, middle of the day as it was when the fish 
generally cease to bite, we took from the pool be- 
low some sixty trout, as fast as we could bait our 
hooks for them. Satisfied with this taste of the 
stream, and assured of our hopes of trout innumera- 
ble, we descended the falls, and looked about for a 
suitable spot to construct a camp, and prepare our 
dinner — for which, by this time, we were in no 
little need, having eaten nothing since the early 
twilight. 

In the meantime, Mr. Butcut and Conway — fish- 
ing down the middle of the stream, and having 
caught some thirty or forty more trout as they came 
along — arrived at the falls, and thus the party were 
once more together — boastful over all our toil and 
sufi'ering, and in high and happy spirits at the suc- 
cessful achievement of the enterprise out. 

In the course of an hour a camp was constructed 
by the banks of the stream, about a hundred yards 



THE BLACK WATER FOUND. 139 

below the falls. A great blazing fire, such as we 
had the night before, was soon under way ; and la- 
zily stretched about on the hemlock, or out upon 
the large, moss-covered rocks that bordered the 
stream — now frying and eating a pan of trout at 
returning intervals, as a not quite sated appetite 
prompted, or taking a little sleep, as nature inclined 
— we passed the hours until about four o'clock, 
when it was deemed advisable to sally forth for the 
purpose of laying in provision for our supper and 
the next morning's breakfast. 

Leaving some of the party to perfect the works 
at the camp, and make everything as comfortable 
as possible for the night, we divided the rest into 
two bands, and set out — one up the stream, the 
other down — to make a somewhat extensive foray 
upon the trout. 

We will not give a minute account of the eve- 
ning's fishing. We will state generally that the in- 
road was very successful ; that we took the trout as 
fast as we could bait for them ; that in a walk of 
about a mile up the stream, and two miles down, 
and back, we at length arrived in camp with about 
as many fish as we could \vell carry — and were 
back all of us about an hour before dark, and all 
rather indiflferent about taking any more trout that 
evening. 

Immediately in front of the camp, and about a 
step out in the stream, is a large rock, in shape a 



14:0 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

parallelogram, of some five feet by ten, rising above 
the water about three feet, and of almost an entirely 
flat surface, except where at one end it is scooped 
into a slight hollow, that will hold some two or three 
buckets of water. This rock we have appropriated 
as our kitchen ; and upon it we have counted out 
some five hundred trout, varying in size from six 
to ten inches — some of them, the black trout, with 
deep red spots — and some salmon-colored, with 
lighter red spots — all of them very beautiful, though 
not, of course, of the largest size of the fish ; for we 
have yet to go down below the great falls of the 
Black water to get at them. 

All hands are now called into requisition to clean 
all these fish ; and it is not long before the whole 
five hundred are prepared for the pan, and safely 
put away in the hollow basin at the other end of the 
kitchen, with a plenty of good fresh w^ater around 
them. 

By the side of this rock, called the kitchen, a lit- 
tle farther out in the stream — an easy step taking 
you from the top of the kitchen-rock to it — is an- 
other large sandstone rock, which is our parlor. 
This last is about ten feet by twelve, and about 
three feet also above the water, and perfectly flat and 
smooth on its surface. Describing thus our difl'er- 
ent apartments — all, like the statues of the heathen 
goddesses in the " Groves of Blarney," standing out 
"naked in the open air" — perhaps it would aflord 



THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 141 

the reader some satisfaction to know our manner 
of nsing them. It is very simple ; as thus : — 

You will have the goodness to observe the move- 
ments of Mr. Butcut at this moment. Tliis gentle- 
man has a turn for good living, and consequently 
lie is "sometliing of an amateur cook. Indeed, it is 
his pleasure so to indulge his genius this way, that 
after he has himself eaten as much as he wants for 
the time being, he takes great delight in exercising 
his talents for the gratification of others. He is 
now about to cook a mess for the Prior, who, com- 
ing in the last from fishing, has now made himself 
ready to enjoy his supper, having a very fine rage 
upon him at present, and a particularly good capa- 
city at all times to go upon. Butcut takes up tlie 
frying pan, and repairs with it to the kitchen. Pla- 
cing it down by the fish, he selects from the clean 
and beautiful hundreds in the basin about eight fine 
fish — half of them black, half of them salmon-col- 
ored, all of them of the largest and fattest — these 
being just as many as the bottom of the frying-pan 
will properly hold. He takes them carefully, even 
daintily, by the tail, between his fore-finger and 
thumb, and places them accurately in the pan in 
alternate heads and tails. A little salt and a little 
black pepper are carefully sprinkled over them. He 
next cuts a few thin slices of middling of bacon and 
places them about in the pan. He is now ready for 
the fire. So he goes to the great blazing pile, and 



142 



THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 



raking out from underneath it, away from any 
smoke, a quantity of the livest embers, he sets the 
frying-pan evenly on these, and soon has the whole 
delicate mess frying away in the most delightful 
manner — the fat of the middling crackling and his- 
sing a most delicious music to his ear — also to the 
ear of the expectant Master. The accomplished 
Peter takes great care that the fish shall not burn 
in the least, so he removes the pan from the hot 
embers every once in a while. Cooked sufficiently 
now, as he supposes, on the one side, he proceeds to 
the operation of turning them. This he does after the 




manner of tossing a pancake. He spreads a white 
napkin upon the rock hard by, and giving the fry- 



THE BLACKWATER FOUND. 143 

ing-pan a toss of a very artful character, up go the 
trout in the air, turning over and coming down into 
the pan again precisely as the arch-cook desires it : 
and all this is done without spilling even so much as 
a drop of grease on the napkin. He now goes to the 
fire again, and performs some more hocus-pocus, that 
is all Hebrew-Greek to the ignorant, until the mess 
^is of a delicate brown hue — when he deems the 
operation complete, and hands the frying-pan to 
the Master with an air which seems to say, '' A dish 
fit to set before a king !" 

The sharp-set Prior, in the meantime, has pre- 
pared himself with a plate — of the real stone-ware 
— that is, a flat, thin stone, of some twelve inches' 
diameter, which he has selected from the bed of the 
stream for his purpose ; and emptying the trout up- 
on his plate, with a chunk of bread on one end of it 
and his big knife on the other, he hands the frying- 
pan to the next gentleman eagerly waiting for it, 
and proceeds from the fireplace to the kitchen, and 
from the kitchen to the parlor, where he sets him- 
self down, with his legs crossed under him after the 
fashion of the Grand Mufti, and, with his plate be- 
fore him, dips in, and makes away with the spoils 
of the Bla'ckwater, in what in elegant life would be 
considered a very short space of time, but which 
excites no comment at all out here — it being com- 
mon to all the men we have seen feed in the country. 

The trout is such light food, that eight of them, 



144 THE BLA.CKWATER CHRONICLE. 

some ten inches long, will not make a supper for a 
hearty man, leading this wilderness life ; and ac- 
cordingly the Master asks for another plateful. But 
Mr. Butcut is by this time cooking another little 
mess for himself, his appetite getting up again on 
him : so the former gentleman has to wait for his 
turn at the frying-pan, and try liis hand for himself. 
But enough. This will suffice to show the habits 
of our indoor life out here on the Blackwater — and 
give also some very just idea of the different apart- 
ments of our dwelling, and of our felicitous manner 
of using them. 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 145 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 

Our Blackwater villa is placed in the most pic- 
turesque position imaginable — almost immediately 
upon the banks of the most lovely of all amber 
streams. It is protected on one side by masses of 
gray sandstone rock, dashed with spots of a darker 
and lighter hue of gray, and occasionally a tinge of 
red — these rocks coated over in places with moss 
of various mingled colors — gray, blue, green, yel- 
low, and purple, and soft and glossy as the richest 
velvet. A noble overshadowing fir-tree rises up 
from one corner of the villa, some hundred and 
fifty feet, to the skies. The laurel grows thick and 
matted back of it, in impenetrable masses ; and the 
glory of its flower, now just swelling into bloom, 
gives an air of elegance — even of splendor, to the 
embowered dwelling. In front, the pure cool stream 
leaps over the falls like a river of calf's-foot jelly 
with a spray of whipped syllabub on top of it, and 
tumbles wildly down through its rocky and ob- 
structed bed, filling your imagination with the 



146 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

poetry of unpolluted mountain waters — running 
pure to your ideal, as the kingdom of heaven. 

The valley of the Blackwater is not more than a 
hundred yards wide, here where we have made our 
home ; and embowered on all sides, by mountains 
of noble forms and various, it wears an air of entire 
seclusion from the world we have deserted. No 
intruding footsteps of man, we instinctively feel, 
will here disturb our chosen, perfect solitude. All 
customs, manners, modes of life, that we have here- 
tofore known, are felt to be the remembrance of an 
almost forgotten dream. The earth is entirely new 
to our senses ; and it is all our own — an entire and 
absolutely perfect fee-simple estate of inheritance 
in land and water, the deed recorded in the most 
secret recesses of our own breasts. Therefore we 
feel an unbounded liberty of thought, speech, and 
action, and this is manifest in all we say and do ; 
and hence the reader will easily understand how 
it is, that there is such entire freedom of remark 
among us, one to another ; how it is that we lay 
about on the hemlock, now that night has set in 
upon us, in such careless luxuriance of attitude ; 
how that the Prior is now stretched out with his feet 
to the fire, and one of the hunters squatted down 
confidingly between them ; how the Signor goes on 
all fours over our bodies, in getting to a snug place 
in a corner of the camp, whither his fancy now 
urges him ; how that Mr. Butcut is flat upon his 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 147 

back in the middle of the softest hemlock, his face 
direct to the heavens, and his body spread out as 
usual in his favorite position of a supple-jack distort- 
ed to the utmost; how Triptolemus's lame leg is 
thrown over one of old Conway's shoulders, with a 
view to the convenient drying of a wet stocking 
before the fire ; how it is that Adolphus, with a 
blanket sweeping his shoulders, half sits, half re- 
clines in among the roots of the great fir-tree, 
wishing he could smoke a mild Havana like the 
rest of us — but compensating his soul for his ina- 
bility, by indulging in visions of trout swimming 
about in all beautiful imaginary waters — the day- 
dream haunting the lights and shadows of his face, 
like an angel of Paradise. 

Lying about thus in all unrestrained felicity, we 
told stories, and discoursed much learning of the 
fisherman and the hunter, ancient and modern ; 
every now and then interweaving some very enter- 
taining and free — sometimes very slashing com- 
ment upon one another ; all of which we regret it 
is out of the question for us to impart to the reader, 
because of its too great freedom, even for this out- 
spoken age. Herein, therefore, that we may not 
fall below the dignity of history — having pitched 
our chronicle up to the very highest standard — we 
must exercise a becoming self-denial, hard as it is 
to refrain. 

The moon has now risen, and although a few 



14:8 THE BLACKWATEE CHEONICLE. 

light fleecy clouds are gathering about here and 
there above us, yet the goddess of the night shines 
down as silvery soft upon the Canaan, as she did 
of old upon the garden. of Yerona, where Lorenzo 
and Jessica vied with each other in chanting her 
worship in such beautiful strains. And, oh ! most 
beautiful reader — now absorbing this inspired 
chapter, like Geraldine, when in lier night-robes 
loose, she lay reclined on couch of Ind, and poured 
over Surrey's captured line — how soothingly soft 
its influence upon us here in the w41d, you — you 
can never altogether know — not even from this 
rapt page ! — how all at once, as if at another Pros- 
pero's wand, our mood w^as changed from that of 
wanton, reckless mirth, and a gentle dreamy in- 
spiration, all poetry and romance (all the finer for 
our satisfaction in the res^ard of the trout — heav- 
enly fish !) — came with the balmy south wind, and 
took possession of our souls! You — even you, 
blissful girl, upon whom the favoring gods have 
bestowed the gift of genius, as well as of beauty — 
you, with your "finely-fibred frame," like Geor- 
giana's, duchess of Devonshire, whom Coleridge 
has so finely commemorated in his beautiful lines 
addressed to that lady — even you can not ever 
know this, unless, perchance, you would go with 
me, and live a sylvan huntress by my side in the 
Canaan, as did Ruth with her roving lover in the 
wilds of Georgia ! But God temper the wind to you. 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 149 

shorn lamb, if you should ever trust yourself to my 
freebooter's faith !— unless, indeed, a latent Helen 
MacGreggor might be contained in your inches ! 

The moon and the soft south wind held us now 
completely enthralled in their divine ravishment ; 
and in this mood we grew musical — the Signor 
Andante at length tuning his voice to the beautiful 
serenade of Henry JSTeele : perhaps the most ex- 
quisite song that has yet been composed by any of 
our countrymen. It was thus Andante's voice, 
murmured a music sweeter than the Blackwater in 
our ears : — 

THE SERENADE. 

"Wake, ladj, wake — the midnight moon 
Sails through the cloudless skies of June : 
The stars gaze sweetly on the stream 
Which, in the brightness of their beam, 

One sheet of glorj lies. 
The glow-worm lends its little light, 
And all that's beautiful and bright 
Is shining on our world to-night, 
w Save thy bright eyes! 

"Wake, lady, wake — the nightingale 
Tells to the moon her love-lorn tale ! 
Now doth the brook that's hushed by day, 
As through the vale she winds her way 

In murmurs sweet rejoice ; 
The leaves by the soft night- wind stirrea. 
Are whispering many a gentle word. 
And all earth's sweetest sounds are heard 
Save thy sweet voice ! 

"Wake, lady, wake — thy lover waits, 
Thy steed stands saddled at the gates I 



150 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

Here is a garment rich and rare, 

To wrap thee from the cold night air ; 

The appointed hour is flown — 
Danger and doubt have vanished quite — 
Our way before is clear and binght — 
And all is ready for the flight — 

Save thou alone! 

""Wake, lady, wake — I have a wreath, 
Thy broad, fair brow shall rise beneath: 
I have a ring that must not shine 
On any finger, love, but thiiie ! 

I've kept my plighted vow. 
Beneath thy casement here I stand, 
To lead thee by thy own white hand. 
Far from this dull and captive strand — 

But where art thou ?" 

The last notes of the serenade died away upon tlie 
air; and not a sound disturbed the repose of the 
wilderness, save the murmur of the waters, and the 
whisperings of the trees. Each one of us, according 
to his gifts, was enjoying a little world of romance 
of his own — his soul lapped up in the creations of 
his gently-inspired brain — thinking not at all of 
the external world, but only of the ideal, conjured 
up by his teeming, beguiling fancy ; when all at 
once a sudden blow sprung up fitfully out of the 
stillness of the air, and threw the whole forest in 
commotion. The fire at our feet shot up a startling 
blaze, in among the branches of the piled-up fir 
and hemlock hitherto untouched, and the crackling 
flames, with their myriad spangles, rose high aloft 
in spiral curls, almost up to the overhanging bran- 
ches of the forest. Startled out of all the glory of 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 151 

our visioned romance, we arose and looked out upon 
the night. Clouds were gathering like mustering 
bands everywhere in the heavens, and fast concen- 
trating their forces. The stars disappeared by 
squadrons from the just now blue and shining vault 
of heaven; and the fair goddess of the night, queen 
of the glittering realm— pale Dian, veiled her mild 
glories altogether from our eyes. Tlie southwest — 
harbinger of summer storms, is a swift and impetu- 
ous power in the air, and wonderfully does he bestir 
himself sometimes. So it was with him to-night ; 
for he sprang up suddenly upon us, without any 
warning, and vented himself, for some cause or 
other to us unknown, in outbursts of gusty bluster 
and passion, that made us think of a whole deluge 
of waters descending upon our devoted camp, 
drowning out our fires and drenching our very 
beds. But for the present there was more of bra- 
vado than performance in his high mightiness; and 
the storm blast blew by. Still darkness was every- 
where over the face of the earth, and the forest 
sent forth a low wail, and the waters murmured a 
sullen and monotonous song— falling upon the ear 
more like a heavy sea breaking lazily upon a flat 
shore, than the light, airy, wild, sportive, notes of 
the playful, impetuous, young streams of the moun- 
tains. 

Each man now wrapped himself around more 
closely in his blanket. ^ word was spoken, but 



152 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

filled with the gloom of the night, we thought wist- 
fully of our pleasant homes — dry and snug, and of 
household security and comfort — books, lights, 
music, fruits, flowers, jocund children — that is 
those who had them — the sly flirtation by the light 
of the chandelier — 

" And mama, too, blind to discover 
The small white hand in mine" — 

— all that makes civilization tolerable ; and we out 
here, in the wilds of the Canaan, far away from the 
knowledge of men — to say nothing of women — 
perhaps lost — and to all reasonable certainty a night 
of wind and rain before us — bears, panthers, wolves, 
owls, around us, and may be not so far off as we 
might desire ! The melancholy soughing of the 
pines, too, above all the voices of the Canaan, had 
entered into our hearts, and awakened our supersti- 
tion, and no diversion of thought could dispossess 
our souls of its influence. The Master, indeed, 
seemed rather to encourage it ; for presently from 
out a dark corner, where half in the glimmer of the 
fire and half in the gloom of the hemlock he lay 
propped away in a very Ossianly state of mind, in 
a low, wild voice, all in harmony with the sough-, 
ing sound of the firs and the sullen murmur of the 
waters, he broke in upon the gloom of the camp, 
crooning the beautiful ballad of Rossmore. It was 
thus the mournful descant fell upon our ears — now 



THE BLACK WATER VILLA. 153 

low as the lowest moan of the pines — now rising, 
now swelling, as the winds blew a louder wail : — 

ROSSMORE. 

"The day was declining, 

The dark night drew near; 
The old lord grew sadder, 

And paler with fear. 
' Come hither, my daughter, 

Come nearer — oh, near! — 
It's the wind or the water 

Tliat sighs in my ear !' 

"Not the wind nor the water 

Now stirred the night air, 
But a warning far sadder — 

The banshee was there ! 
Now rising, now swelling, 

On the night wind it bore 
One cadence — still telling, 

'I want thee, Rossmore I' 

"And then fast came his breath. 

And more fixed grew his eye : 
And the shadow of death 

Told his hour was nigh ! 
Ere the dawn of that morning 

The struggle was o'er. 
For when thrice canie the warnings 

A corpse was Rossmore !" 

"Hush your horrible croaking!" said AOIolphus, 
when the Master's voice had come to a stand-still. 
" Shut up, or I'll leave the room ! Isn't it all mis- 
erable enough already, but you must be keeping us 
from going to sleep with ballads about dying men, 
and such unearthly things?" 

" Let's put him out !" exclaimed Peter. 



154 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

" Turn him out into the wilderness, and let him 
run with Ishmael and the other beasts !" 

" Pitch him into the Blackwater !" 

" And if there are any big falls below, let him go 
down them !" 

" Kill him ! — curse him — kill him !" 

" I have heard about such things, Mr. Philips," 
said Powell — " like that about Rossmore. Do you 
believe in them ?" 

" Oh, certainly, Powell." 

" I once saw a spirit," said old Conway. 

" With a long tail on him ?" asked Peter. 

" Well, I can't say but it had," continued the old 
man with eagerness. "Once — it was on a dark, 
black — the blackest sort of a night — about the end 
of one November — I was a-walking alone in the 
woods — and I came close upon a — " 

"Don't tell it — it was nothing but a bear or a 
wolf!" exclaimed Butcut. "I wish I was at home. 
What a fool I was for coming here!" — and Peter 
tried again to sleep. 

The sobbing and sighing wind still kept up its sad 
lament throughout the vale ; and Andante to its ac- 
companiment again tuned his voice, and half- spoke, 
half-sung the following strange old Scotch ballad : — 

THE TWA CORBIES. * 

"There were twa corbies sat on a tree, 
Large and black as black nnight be ; 
And one the other 'gan say, 
* Where shall we go and dine to-day ? 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 156 

Shall we dine by the wild salt sea ? 

Shall we go dine 'neath the greenwood-tree V 

'"As I sat on the deep sea-sand, 
I saw a fair ship nigh at land : 
I waved my wings, I bent my beak — 
The ship sank, and I heard a shriek ! 
There they lie, one, two, and three — 
I shall dine by the wild salt sea.' 

" 'Come, I will show you a sweeter sight — 
A lonesome glen and a new-slain knight : 
His blood yet on the grass is hot. 
His sword half-drawn, his shafts unshot. 
And no one kens that he lies there, 
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady-fair ! 

" 'His hound is to the hunting gane, 
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame. 
His lady's away with another mate, 
So we shall make our dinner sweet; 
Our dinner's sure, our feasting free — 
Come and dine by the greenwood-tree. 

" ' Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane, 
I will pick out his bonny blue e'en ; 
Ye'U take a tress of his yellow hair, 
To theak your nest when it grows bare ; 
The gowden down on his young chin 
Will do to sewe my young ones in. 

" ' Oh, cauld and bare will his bed be, 
"When winter storms sing in the tree ! 
At his head a turf, at his feet a stone — 
He will sleep, nor hear the maiden's moan: 
O'er his white bones the birds shall fly, 
The wild deer bound, and foxes cry !'" 

"This thing is getting intolerable!" exclaimed 
Galen. 

" It must be put an end to !" said But. 



156 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

" Perhaps," observed Giiy, " you might prefer to 
hear the ballad of ' Harold the Grim.' That's a bal- 
lad, now, for such a night as this ! I think I could 
pitch it to the ' Infernal Waltz' in ' Robert the 
Devil.' Touch us the strain. Signer." 

Here the Signer let himself loose upon the waltz, 
and went on into the opera in general, joined at 
length by Mr. Butcut and our whole orchestra — 
Powell and Conway smoking their pipes all the 
while in utter amazement at the effect produced. 
This led to the performance of divers other pieces 
from the other operas, in executing which, " Harold 
the Grim," and the wail of the forest, and the sad 
murmur of the Blackwater, were all forgotten for 
the time. 

This spirited defiance of our condition did not 
last. It was but a temporary rising up ; and, tired 
out, we laid ourselves down upon the hemlock, and 
again gave way to the Ossianly influences of the 
forest. The owls by this time began to hoot about 
in alternate question and answer. " Whoo-whoo- 
whoo-whoo are you?" said one, and another an- 
swered with a hollow, short laugh — "Whoo-oo- 
00-00 ! — whoo-oo-oo-oo !" Certain now that the 
owls were beginning to come about us — attracted, 
no doubt, by the cooking of the camp' — we expected, 
the next thing, to hear of the approach of the bears 
and panthers in our neighborhood. The smell of 
the bacon and grease of our kitchen would undoubt- 



THE BLACKWATER VILLA. 157 

edly bring these gentlemen around us sometime in 
the night ; it might be, indeed, that our own meat 
would draw them : and in the event of its turning 
out a night of rain, why then our fire might be 
drenched out, and there would be nothing to keep 
the animals from coming in upon us. 

In the meantime, however, these thoughts natu- 
rally arising in the mind, Triptolemus lifted up his 
voice, and of his own accord — in a somewhat dis- 
cordant tone, in keeping with the rude character of 
the rhythm — chanted the ditty of 

BANGUM AND THE WILD-BOAR. 

" There is a wild-boar in the wood, 

Killum-coo, Con ! 
There is a wild-boar in the wood, 
He'll eat your meat and drink your blood — 

Cut him down ! 

Cut him down I 

" Bangum vowed that he would ride, 

Killum-eoo, Con ! 
Bangum vowed that he would ride, 
With sword and pistol by his side, 

Cut him down ! 

Cut him down ! 

"He tracked the wild-boar to his den, 

Killum-coo, Con ! 
He tracked the wild-boar to his den, 
And there he saw the bones of ten thousand men, 

Cut him down 1 

Cut him down ! 

" They fought three hours by the day, 
Killum-coo, Con ! 



158 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

They fought three hours by the day, 
Till at last the wild-boar — he ran away, 

Cut him down ! 

Cut him down !" 

This delightful ballad of " Bangiim and the Boar" 
Trip sang all to himself, for by this time we were 
about getting to sleep. "Whether this version is a 
correct one, Heaven only knows ! But we give it 
here as Trip sang it, and the probability therefore 
is that it is a good deal mixed up. Be this as it 
may, it is a very remarkable lyric, and worthy of 
being preserved in this chronicle as a specimen of 
our earlier and ruder song. 

About this time some drops of rain fell down 
heavily upon the leaves of the forest — premonitory 
of what was in store for us ; and in five minutes 
more, we, our camp, and everything around, were 
drenched. As it seemed to be a rather settled, 
steady pouring down of the clouds, without any 
wind or noise of any sort about it — and as there 
was no help for it, the hunters secured the fire as 
well as they could (covering it over partially with 
some pieces of hemlock-bark) ; when, rooting our- 
selves about among each other like a litter of pigs 
in a barnyard, we soon fell asleep, in defiance of 
the pitiless elements. 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 159 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 

Undisturbed by any of the wild beasts, we slept 
through the rain until broad daylight, when we 
crawled out of our litter, and started the nearly- 
extinguished fire. The rain had ceased to fall some- 
time in the night ; but the mist covered the mount- 
ains and enveloped the river ; the forest was every- 
where dripping wet, and for a while it was rather 
cheerless as we sat drooping before the slow fire. 
Soon, however, the flames took hold of the wood, 
and, as the blaze spread, our spirits revived. 

The worst possible thing for a man to do, under 
any circumstances, is to sit down and droop : the 
very best, all the philosophers agree, is to go to 
work. So we picked up the hatchets and axe, and 
soon had a wagon-load of young hemlocks and firs 
upon the fire, making a flame that dried the atmo- 
sphere all around our villa. In doing this, it was 
discovered that we were as supple of joint and 
limb as if we had slept in moonshine ; and when 
Triptolemus looked for his cold (which he had 
brought with him into the country), and couldn't 



160 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

find it — and Mr. Butcut felt himself lighter and 
freer in body than he had done since he started — 
it would have puzzled any one, coming fresh among 
us, to believe that we had slept out all night in the 
open air, in a drenching rain. 

After breakfast, however, going beyond the en- 
campment, and seeing everything still wet and un- 
comfortable, the hearts of some of the party began 
to fail them — and it was proposed that we should 
strike our camp for home. 

" What ! and not explore the stream, after com- 
ing out all the way here for the purpose! — No — 
not so," said the artist, who wished to sketch the 
falls. 

" IS'ot so," repeated the Master, who wished to 
take some of the larger trout of the Blackwater. 

" And you mean, then, to keep us out here another 
night in the rain !" exclaimed Peter. " I won't sub- 
mit to it!" 

"I should rather think we have had enough of 
it," said Galen — the idea of another night of j-ain 
destroying his romance a little. 

" What do you say. Trip ? Are you satisfied ?" 

" Ugh — uh !" replied Trip ; but whether he meant 
yes or no, was only to be got at from his counte- 
nance — which was rather down. 

" It will read badly in our annals, gentlemen," 
observed the Master, "to go back without explo- 
ring the falls. Besides, I want to get in among the 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 161 

large fish. We have caught nothing to call a trout 
yet!" 

" We have seen all the falls we are going to see," 
said Peter. 

" AVhat's your opinion as to that, Powell ?" 

" There are certainly larger falls, gentlemen, some- 
where down below us. These couldn't make all the 
roar we have heard out here — could they, Cona- 
way ?" 

"That's onpossible," replied Conway. 

" Gentlemen, I am really suffering very much out 
here — ^this climate don't agree with me I" said Pe- 
ter, pathetically. 

"You look ill, But!" 

Peter smiled faintly at this. It was the first trace 
of anything of the kind that had illumined his coun- 
tenance since day dawned. 

The reader will perceive, from the above conver- 
sation — which will serve as a sample of a very con- 
siderable discussion, involving the breaking up of 
the expedition at this point — that some of us bad 
enough of the wilderness. Although we were all 
perfectly unharmed by the exposure of the last 
night, yet the recollection of it affected the mind 
unpleasantly, and suggested visions of the comfort 
of Towers's hostel, which made against any very 
strong wish to remain out another night — such 
night in our Blackwater villa. But the secret of 
this desire to leave was attributable to the fact that 



162 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

the sun had not yet risen high enough to clear the 
hilltops, and disperse the mists and fogs of the 
morning, which after such a night of rain, had en- 
veloped everywhere the beautiful world around. 
Let but the sun shine awhile, and the glory of the 
rhododendron — the beauty of light and shade — 
the splendor of the living green of the wild — the 
sheen and the sparkle of the waters — the summer- 
morning breeze — the song of the birds — all the 
glories of the month of June in the mountains — all 
these must enter into the heart, and bring gladness 
to despair itself As it was, the Master and the 
Signer rather had But, and Galen, and Trip, in their 
power ; for the two hunters, it was very evident, 
were keen-set for the exploration of the falls. No 
one up here knew anything about these falls, other 
than the conjecture of their existence : at any rate, 
there was no known man who had seen them. The 
pride of discovery, therefore, operated on the hunt- 
ers ; and it was apparent that all Andante and the 
Master had to do, was to say the word, and they 
couldn't be bribed to go back. However, the sun 
began to shine out about this time, breaking through 
the mists of the valley ; and it was agreed that the 
exploring party should go out, while the others 
would amuse themselves fishing or shooting in the 
neighborhood of the camp, and, if they tired of that, 
occupy themselves in ornamenting our villa, and in 
improving its sleeping-apartment with a roof — so 



THE FALLS OF THE BLA.CKWATER. 163 

tliat, in case we abode here another night, we might 
be able to sleep without being drenched with the 
rain. 

In accordance with this arrangement, the Master 
and the aitist, with Powell and Conway, prepared 
themselves for the day, and set out on their enter- 
prise of discovery. The heavens seemed to favor 
us, for we had scarce yet filed into the stream, when 
the sun broke through the vapor of the valley and 
lit up the windings of the little river, until it shone 
all resplendent of gold, and amber, and snow-white 
foam. It was as if some celestial light had sud- 
denly illumined the dripping and cheerless Canaan, 
and we went 

" On our way attended 
By the vision splendid." 

Some short distance below the camp, when in the 
middle of a small, grassy island, we saw a large doe 
standing about fifty yards below us, among a group 
of rocks in tlie middle of the stream, where she was 
browsing upon the moss. Presently she saw us, 
and raised her head, standing motionless and lost 
in wonder — irresolute as Ariadne when she was 
about to fly. 

"She has fawns," whispered Powell, "back in 
the laurel, and has left them for a while, to come 
down into the river to drink, and eat the moss upon 
the rocks." 

" Don't stir," whispered Conway. " Keep still as 



164 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

you can, till I go back to the camp and get my rifle. 
It's an elegant shot !" 

The Master clapped his hands, and the deer bound- 
ed in about two leaps to the bank of the river, and 
disappeared — vanished. 

" ISTo, Conway," said the Master, " you wouldn't 
kill that beautiful creature, in cold blood !" 

"We hunters," replied the old forester, in some 
amazement, " don't think about their beauty, Mr. 
Philips ; it's their meat we look at." 

" It's as well not to have shot it, Conaway," said 
Powell. " She has fawns over there in the laurel." 

" How do you know that ?" asked the Signor. 

"Why, come down to the place, and I'll show 
you." 

We moved down to the rocks and halted. " You 
see," said Powell, "here are the tracks of that deer 
coming -into the water, and here they are going out. 
That shows, you see, that she went out the same 
way she came in." 

"Yes." 

" You observed she turned round to jump out of 
the river." 

"Yes." 

"Well, we hunters reason from this, that she 
must have fawns over here in the laurel, or she 
would have taken out on the other side — which 
was natural, as she was standing with her head that 
way. What made her turn to get out the same way 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 165 

she came in? Something turned her; and as it is 
about the time now they have their fawns, I say it 
was to get back to them." 

"The reasoning's good," replied the Signor. 

" I am satisfied," observed the Master, " and have 
learned a little more of the lore of the forest than I 
knew before." 

" If it was worth while," said Powell, " I would 
go into the laurel and get the fawns for you. But 
if there is anything I don't like, it is laurel." 

Of course, we had no idea of encumbering our- 
selves with the fawns ; so we pursued our way down 
the stream — now up to our knees in the water — 
now stooping under some great tree that had fallen 
across the stream — again along the banks, as they 
presented a better footway — now through the little 
meadows of luxuriant grass that skirted the shores 
of the stream — over islands of great rocks — break- 
ing into the laurel to get round some hanging cliffs 
— sometimes stepping on a slippery stone, and go- 
ing down soused all over in the water — until at 
length, some two miles below our camp, we came 
to the second falls. These are twelve feet high — a 
clear pitch, and in the shape of a horseshoe. The 
pool below them looked deep and dark, spotted with 
flakes of white foam and bubbles, and no doubt 
contained some" large-sized trout. We did not stop, 
however, to test it, but proceeded on our course. 

The sun by this time had lisen high above the 



166 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

mountains, and was shining down upon the Canaan 
w^ith all his refulgence. The river was ever turning 
in its course, and every few moments some new 
charm of scenery was given to our view. The at- 
mosphere was soft and pleasantly warm, and the 
breeze gently fanned the trees. The wilderness was 
rich everywhere with hues of all dyes, and the banks 
of the river gleamed for miles with the flowers of 
the rhododendron. A scene of more enchantment 
it would be difficult to imagine. The forest with its 
hues of all shades of green — the river of delicate 
amber, filled with flakes of snow-white foam — and 
the splendor of the rhododendron everywhere in your 
eye. Picture all this in the mind — then remember 
that you were far beyond the limits of the world 
you had known — and say, was it of heaven, or was 
it of earth ! 

Such pure, unalloyed charm of soul as we felt 
that morning, it would be worth any hardship to 
enjoy. ISTo disturbing thought had any place in 
the mind. It seemed that we had entered into a 
new existence, that was one of some land of vision. 
As for the world we had left, it was as unknown to 
our thoughts as if we had never heard of it ; it was 
absolutely lapsed from all memory, and nothing but 
the beauty and the bliss of the imtrodden Canaan 
entered into our hearts. 

' As for myself — without pretending to speak at 
all for the Master, or the Signer, or the two hunters 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 167 

■ — I am certain I had no idea of having ever been 
born of woman — no idea of having ever known a 
passion of mortal joy or sorrow : I was some crea- 
tion of an undiscovered paradise (hitherto undreamed 
of even) altogether, for those few hours of a new 
eouL And it seems to me now, when I revert my 
thoughts to that morning's exploration of the Black- 
water, that all the divinities of old fable must have 
had their dwelling-place out there ; that surely Pan 
and Faunus dwelt in those wilds ; that Diana lived 
there, and Latmos, on whose top she nightly 
kissed the boy Endymion, was the mountain that 
bordered the Black water ; that Yenus — she of the 
sea — Anadyomene, sometimes left the sea-foam and 
reposed her charms in the amber flow of the river; 
that Diana the huntress, with all her attendant 
nymphs, pursued those beautiful deer I saw ; that 
the naiads dwelt in the streams^ and the sylphs lived 
in the air, and the dryads and hamadryads in the 
woods around ; that Egeria had her grotto nowhere 
else but in the Canaan — all the beautiful creations 
of old poesy, the spirits or gods that now 

"No longer live in the faith of reason," — 

all were around me in the unknown wild — 

" The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
The fair humanities of old religion, 
The power, the beauty, and the majesty. 
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, 
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
Or chasms and watery depths." 



168 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. 

— Sometimes the fancy has possessed me that I 
saw Undine sitting in all her beauty by the foam 
of the little Niagara, the most beautiful of all the 
falls. Sometimes, too, I have seen Bonny Kil- 
meney — who was 

" As pure as pure could be" — 

sleeping on the purple and gold-cushioned rocks, 
even as the Shepherd Poet has so exquisitely cre- 
ated her — her bosom heaped with flowers, and love- 
ly beings of the spirit world infusing their thoughts 
of heaven into her spotless soul — her 

" Joup of the lilly sheen, 
Her bonny snood of the birk sae green, 
And those roses, the fairest that ever were seen." 

All these images, and many more innumerable, of 
the creations of the genius of mankind, are asso- 
ciated in my mind, henceforth and for ever, with 
the Blackwater; and although I am fully aware 
that in here giving expression to these fancies, I 
run some little risk of stamping this historic narra- 
tive with the character of fiction, yet the judicious 
reader will observe that this chronicle was intended 
in its inception to be an impress of the body and 
soul of the expedition — the motions and affections 
of the mind were to be recorded, as well as the mo- 
tions and affections of the body — therefore he will 
see that it is all in keeping with the high aim of 
our undertaking. In accordance, then, with this 



THE FAXLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 169 

just view of things, I have no hesitation in writing 
it down here, that the Avhole expedition felt them- 
selves in a paradise all the morning; and I will 
take this occasion to observe in regard to myself 
especially, that I know something of the joys of 
this world — have had my reasonable share, and 
more too, of the joy that comes of passion — but 
that perfect bliss of the soul — that feeling of entire 
happiness, which has no taint of our mortal lot in it 
— which is beatific, such as an angel ever lives in, 
I never had any distinct idea of — never anything 
but a glimmering, vague, mystified conjecture of, 
until I felt the heaven of that morning down the 
exquisite stream. 

The reader no doubt is a little startled at this 
apparent extravagance, but let him restrain him- 
self. It is all true, every word of it — as near as 
any felicities of the English language will convey a 
meaning ; and although he may deem the brain of 
the chronicler of the expedition a little turned (by 
thunder may be), yet I call confidently upon Mr. 
Butcut, upon Adolphus, upon the Master of St. 
Philip's, upon Triptolemus Todd, Esq., upon the 
Signor, and the two hunters, to say if it does not 
but poorly convey to their minds the feelings they 
experienced. Why, Mr. Butcut, forgetful of all 
his sufferings, grows enthusiastic when he thinks 
of the Blackwater, even at this day; and Trip 
chuckles from ear to ear, with a joyous ugh — uli ! 



170 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

if you but point your finger in the direction of the 
Alleganies ! 

While we have stopped to dilate a little on the 
heavenly delights of the Canaan, the exploring ex- 
pedition did not stop, but wound its way down the 
bed of the stream ; and presently turning a rocky 
promontory that jutted the mountain side, the 
Blackwater, some hundred yards ahead, seemed to 
have disappeared entirely from the face of the 
earth, leaving nothing visible down the chasm 
through which it vanished, but the tops of fir-trees 
and hemlocks — and there stood on the perilous 
edge of a foaming precipice, on a broad rock high 
above the flood, the Signor Andante (who had gone 
a-head), demeaning himself like one who had lost 
his senses, his arms stretched out wide before him, 
and at the top of his voice (which couldn't be 
heard for the roar and tumult around him), pouring 
forth certain extravagant and very excited utter- 
ances ; all that could be made out of which, as the 
rest drew close to his side, was something or other 
about 

" The cataract of Lodore 

Pealing its orisons," 

and other fragments of sublime madness about cat- 
aracts and waterfalls, to be found at large in the 
writings of the higher bards. 

Not stopping at all to benefit by the poetic and 
otherwise inspired outpouring of the wild and appa- 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 171 

rently maddened artist, thus venting himself to the 
admiring rocks and mountains and tumbling waters 
around, the expedition stepped out upon the fur- 
thest verge and very pinnacle of the foaming bat- 
tlements, and gazed upon the sight, so wondrous 
and so wild, thus presented to their astonished 
ejes. 

No wonder that the Signor demeaned himself 
with so wild a joj : for 

"All of wonderful and wild, 
Had rapture for the artist child ;" 

and perhaps in all this broad land of ours, whose 
wonders are not yet half revealed, no scene more 
beautifully grand ever broke on the eye of poet or 
painter, historian or forester. The Blackwater here 
evidently breaks its way sheer down through one 
of the ribs of the backbone of the Alleganies. The 
chasm through which the river forces itself thus 
headlong tumultuous down, is just wide enough to 
contain the actual breadth of the stream. On 
either side, the mountains rise up, almost a perpen- 
dicular ascent, to the height of some six hundred 
feet. They are covered down their sides, to the 
very edge of the river, with the noblest of firs and 
hemlocks, and as far as the eye can see, with the 
laurel in all its most luxuriant growth — befitting 
undergrowth to such noble growth of forest, where 
every here and there some more towering and vast 
Balsam fir, shows his grand head, like 



172 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

" Caraetacus in act to rally his host." 

From the brink of the falls, where we now stand, 
it is a clear pitch of some forty feet. Below, the 
water is received in a large bowl of some fifteen or 
twenty feet in depth, and some sixty or eighty feet 
across. Beyond this, the stream runs narrow for a 
short distance, bound in by huge masses of rock 
— some of them cubes of twenty feet — then pitches 
down another fall of some thirty feet of shelving 
descent — then on down among other great rocks, 
laying about in every variety of shape and size — all 
the time falling by leaps of more or less descent, 
until it comes to something like its usual level of 
running before it begins the pitch down the moun- 
tain. This level of the stream, however, is but 

" The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below ;" 

for it leads you to a second large fall, a clear pitch 
again of some forty feet. From the top of this you 
look down some two hundred feet more of such 
shelving falls and leaping descent, as we have de- 
scribed above, until you come again to another 
short level of the stream. This, in its turn, is the 
approach to another large fall. Here the river 
makes a clear leap again of about some thirty 
feet, into another deep basin ; and looking on 
below you, you see some two hundred feet or 
more of like shelving falls and rapid rush-down of 
the stream, as followed upon the other large falls. 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 173 

Getting down below all these, the river heaving 
now tumbled headlong down some six hundred 
l<eet, more or less, in somewhere about a mile, it 
makes a bend in its course, along the base of the 
mountain to the left, and mingles its amber waters 
with the darker flow of the Cheat : the Cheat some 
tliree times the size of the Blackwater ; and roaring 
down between mountains (twelve or fifteen hun- 
dred feet sheey up above us), through, not a val- 
ley, but a rocky and savage chasm, scarcely wide 
enough to hold tlie river. 

It will be perceived from this description, that 
the falls of the Blackwater must be extremely 
grand, picturesque, and wild, in their character. A 
stream of good size, that breaks down through one 
of the bold Allegany mountains — a fall in the 
whole, of some six hundred feet, must afl"ect the 
mind grandly. If, instead of a beautiful little river 
of some fifty feet in breadth, running some two or 
three feet deep in the main, it were as large as the 
Cheat, the predominating sense of the beautiful 
that now belongs to it, would be lost in the terror 
it would inspire. As it is, let the floods get out in 
the mountains — let the snows of winter linger on in 
the Alleganies into the spring ; and all at once let 
the south wind blow, and the sun returning higher 
up this way, pour down his rays ; then would you 
behold such a mad rush and tumult of waters, roar- 
ing down the Alleganies, as would strike such 



174 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

awe into your soul, as not even I^iagara, in all 
his diffused vastness, could impress you with. But, 
then, it would be no longer the exquisite Black- 
water, filling the mind with so wondrous and wild 
a sense of beauty, that now makes it a picture, such 
as no son of genius, who had once hung it up in the 
galleries of his brain, would ever take down. 

But enough of comment. We will leave the falls 
to the imagination of the reader, who'can now work 
up for himself, from the sketch we have given, such 
a picture as will best please him ; and go on to 
relate some little incidents of fishing, which we 
hope will impart some pleasure. 

If we remember aright, we left the expedition 
standing on the brow of the first fall, in some con- 
siderable tumult of soul at the grand sight that had 
broken so suddenly and unexpectedly upon them ; 
and the artist — the Signor Andante, in a frenzy 
of inspiration — 

" On a rock, whose haughty brow 
Frowns o'er Blackwater's foaming flood, 
Kobed in the ragged garb he wore, 
With flashing eyes the artist stood ;" 

now repeating wildly to the Blackwater flood, the 
fiery song which the last of the bards uttered over 
^' Old Conway's" (I don't mean Conway the man, 
but the river). 

"We are happy, however, in being able to inform 
all who take any interest in the artist, that he did 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER. 175 

not conclude his rant in the grand manner of the 
last of the bards ; who — 

"Spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height, 
Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night!" 

No, Andante, backed himself very carefully out from 
the edge of the torrent ; and, very much in accord- 
ance with our preconceived estimate of him as a 
man of sense, followed the hunters into the hang- 
ing side of the mountain, where he, like the rest of 
us, letting himself down by clinging to the branches 
of laurel, and sliding on his back down the steep 
rocks, with the aid of an occasional precarious foot- 
hold, at length succeeded in getting below the cata- 
ract. 

We now prepared ourselves for the trout. It was 
by this time, near the middle of the day, too late, 
as we supposed, for any very good fishing ; for the 
large fish generally by this time lie about in the 
bed of the streams, and are indififerent to the lure 
of the bait. Notwithstanding this, we had scarcely 
thrown our lines into the deep water before us, 
before our bait was seized. The Master drew up 
the first fish. He had thrown in lust at the edo-e of 
the foam and spray of the fall, and a quick, bold 
pull swept his line through the foam. On the 
instant, witli a switch of his rod sidewise, then 
throwing it up aloft, he landed^ between his thighs 
(for it was water all around him) a fine vigorous 
trout, breaking ofiP about two feet of the switch-end 



176 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

of his maple rod. This trout was a foot long, and 
some three inches deep behind the shoulders. Pres- 
ently Powell di'ew out another of about the same 
size. Then the artist brought out a fine one from 
the bowl. And Conway, who by this time had 
picked up the best stick he could find, and tied a 
short bit of sea-weed to it — squatting down on 
his haunches, on a mossy rock, and looking the 
picture of some old sleepy satyr of the woods, palled 
out his large fish without a word to anybody. It 
was great work ; and the excitement intense. In 
the course of a quarter of an hour we had caught, 
among all of us, some twenty fine fish — some of 
them thirteen inches long — and this with no other 
bait than the common red worm. Indeed, if to take 
a quantity of trout be your only object, so full is the 
stream of them, and so ravenous are they, that 
with any sort of a line, and anything of a hook — a 
pin-hook 'if you can get no other — you may take as 
many as you can carry. But our tackle was good, 
and with the exception of a regular rod (which it 
would have been troublesome to have brought 
along upon so difficult an enterprise) we were 
reasonably well provided for the sport. If the 
reader will bear it in mind, that the Blackwater 
never in all probability had a line thrown in it 
before, he need wonder at nothing we can tell him 
about the quantity of trout it contains, or the greed- 
iness with which they bite at any sort of bait. 



THE FALLS OF THE BLACK WATER. 177 

As our purpose to-day was rather to explore the 
falls than fish, we drew up our lines and proceeded 
down the torrent. By dint of much scrambling, 
and crawling, climbing, leaping, hanging, and every 
other sort of means you can think of, of getting 
yourself along — sometimes swept down by the 
strength of the current, and lodged in some side 
eddy or pool — driving out the trout, and getting 
up and shaking yourself, with some two or three 
craw-fish, about the size of your hand, sticking to 
your clothes — we made our way down below the 
second of the large falls. Here we fished again for 
a while, and caught some fifty more trout ; some 
of us baiting our hooks with the gullets of the fish, 
cut out for that purpose ; and some with the red 
fins, whicli we would cut oft* and use, by way of 
substitute for the fly, and which was found to an- 
swer the purpose as well- as anything else. 

Satisfied with the trial of the stream heie, we 
drew up, and proceeded down our rugged way. 
Presently, missing the artist, who had gone ahead 
of us, we were under some apprehension that lie 
had fallen down some of the rocks, and ended his 
mortal career, here and elsewhere — especially, 
when, after repeated calls, we could hear no answer 
from him. Moving down the stream, tlierefore, 
somewhat rapidly, we came upon a wide rock, 
over which the water lay about in pools; and 
where we saw scattered about, high and dry, a 



178 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

goodly number of large trout, dying and dead. Be- 
low this rock the Signor had let himself down some 
ten feet; and standing on a flat ledge, enveloped in 
spray from the water flowing down on either side of 
him, he was intently engaged in hauling out from 
a pool before him, the fine trout we saw around 
about as fast as he could bait his hook. He told 
us he had been here only some fifteen minutes ; 
and when he ascended, without a dry shred upon 
him, from the watery grotto wherein he had en- 
shrined himself, he gathered up some sixteen fish of 
the largest size we had taken that day. 

Leaving our rods at this point, we went on as 
rapidly as we could make our way, down the falls, 
and finished our exploration to the mouth of the 
Blackwater. Here, sitting down to rest, we sum- 
med up our review of the falls — in which we set- 
tled down to the estimate above given, that the 
leap-down of the Blackwater must be some six hun- 
dred feet, in somewhere about a mile. The reader 
will understand that this estimate is made, not by 
guesswork, but upon some certain data ; for we 
measured all the larger falls. It will be perceived, 
^owever, that we can not be far wrong in our com- 
putation, when we make the statement, that from 
the top of each of the larger falls, you see, at the dis- 
tance of a few hundred yards down before you, the 
tops of fir-trees (their bodies not visible) peering up 
like bushes ; and when you get down to them, you 



THE FALLS OF THK BLACKWATER. 179 

find they are great trees of some liundred feet or 
more in height. Standing upon the top of the first 
large fall, you look down upon some hundred and 
fifty feet or more, of the leap-down of the river — 
going down, then, to this point, you make a turn 
for some distance, and presently come upon the 
next large fall — from the top of which you look 
down upon about the same descent — and so on to 
the third. But enough. Let us now go back. 

About halfway up the falls a thunder-storm passed 
over ns ; and the reverberation down the chasm was 
exceedingly grand. Stopping under a hanging 
rock that afi'orded us shelter from the storm, we 
saw in the wet sand the footprints of otter, and 
other evidences of their inhabiting the stream. 
Presently there came a volleyed discharge of the 
heaven's cannon ; and as the roar muttered itself 
away throughout the refts of the mountains, the 
sun broke out, and we proceeded on our way up 
the steep ascent — a rainbow over-arching the wa- 
terfalls, and the spray everywhere golden with 
sunbeams. At length, reaching the top of the 
grand chasm, and standing again on the brink of 
the impending rocks where we first hailed so rap- 
turously, the leap-down of the river — we took a 
last look of the wdld scene and went on our way to 
the camp. 

Somewhere about five o'clock in the eveninor we 

o 

came in, and depositing our spoils of the stream — 



180 THE BLACKWA^rER CHKOTsICLE. 

about a hundred and fifty fine trout; we eat and 
recounted our adventures alternately, until we and 
our audience grew tired and fell asleep ; the Prior 
murmuring as he went ofi", the noble lines of By- 
ron — 

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold," — 

the Assyrian to his imagination being the dark and 
rushing Cheat, and the cohorts gleaming in purple 
and golcl^ the golden Blackwater and the other glit- 
tering streams of the Canaan. 



now WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 



181 



"^f? 




CHAPTEE XIII. 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN AND IN SPITE 

OF OUR TEETH. 

Morning has dawned again upon the camp, and 
with it we arose to prepare for our homeward 
march. We took our last bath in the Blackwater, 
and at breakfast eat up all that remained of our 
provisions. Some of us, sated with the trout, 
breakfasted entirely upon the bacon that was left. 
In our hardy and rough life, the Ush had ceased 
to be food to us, and a beefsteak would have been 



182 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. 

the greatest of luxuries. Had we been prepared 
to remain out longer, it will be seen, therefore, that 
we would have taken to killing the deer for our 
table — which we only did not do heretofore, be- 
cause it seemed like wanton butchery to slay the 
beautiful "foresters," when we had the finest of 
all fish that swim in such abundance. Everything, 
however, was now gone — the ham and middling 
eaten, the last of the coffee drank — and not a 
crumb of bread remained. There were about three 
hundred trout, cleaned and ready for use, in our 
kitchen, but we turned up our noses at them. Out 
of these, Conway selected some of the finest, and 
making a basket of the bark of tlie fir-tree, packed 
them up to take home, no one else choosing to be 
troubled with them : all the rest we left on the rock 
— a feast for the otters, or whatever other of the 
wild inhabitants of the Canaan, who were fond of 
fish. 

With our wallets strapped on our shoulders, and 
all equi^^ped for the march, we waited the rising of 
the sun, to marshal us the way we should go ; for 
having no compass along, the god of day was our 
only guide, preserver, and friend. Presently, the 
sun arose, " blushing discontented" at the clouds 
around, and Powell, with his rifle in one hand and 
the frying-pan in the other, started up from his 
seat, followed first by Conway, then by all of us — 
and thus we bi'oke our way into the laurel, making 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 183 

straiglit lip the mountain, that rose high above us, 
dark and dense with all the green leaves of sum- 
mer. 

Reaching the top of the ridge, the hunters held 
some counsel as to their course ; and telling us, 
confidently, that they would take us to the glade 
on the Potomac, where we had left our horses, by 
two o'clock, we strode through the wild in high 
spirits — even Peter vaunting himself very much, 
and proclaiming the glorious feelings of a life in 
tlie woods. With much jest, and a good deal of 
extravagant utterance of one sort and another — 
some occasional practical remark in regard to the 
wealth of land and water around us — we went 
careeringly on our way, like a band of Indians 
single file on a war-path, if path that can be called 
where path there was none. 

In about two hours of 'such walking, a damper 
was put on our spirits by the announcement of 
gathering clouds. Presently down came the rain ; 
and a little tired already with the climbing up 
and down the mountains, and the rough and 
tumble of it all — the tumhle done in the main 
by Trip, who fell along as was his wont — we 
stopped at length under a tree, until the shower, 
as we supposed it, would pass by. "We sat here for 
some time, but the forest being by this time entirely 
wet — which of course would wet us in walking: 
through it — we concluded that we might as well 



184 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

take the rain in one shape as another, and proceed 
on our way. But here at once a question arose as 
to where the way was, for we had lost the sun to 
guide us. A right sharp debate took place, but 
Powell insisting upon a certain direction, off we 
started — Peter beginning to show a little gloom 
of countenance, and none of us a face of the bright- 
est. However, on we went, forcing a spirit we did 
not entirely feel, and after about two hours more 
of hard walking, all wet and very well blown, we 
came to a halt at an exclamation made by Galen, 
the purport of which was, that a bent tree just be- 
fore us, was the very same bent tree that we had 
stopped under two hours ago. This was a very 
discomforting remark to have thrust upon us, and 
was controverted by the whole party. And there 
was great difficulty in deciding the matter, for the 
wilderness is so covered everywhere with moss, and 
so entirely trackless, and there are so many places 
that look alike, and so many trees bent over by the 
storms all about, that the fact of our having been 
here two hours before was about being decided in 
the negative (the wish being father to the conclu- 
sion), w^hen the doctor discovered a cut in the side 
of a tree, where he had stuck his hatchet when he 
was here before. 

This settled the question. It was clear we had been 
walking the last two hours in a circle, and had 
come back to the point we started from. Clouds 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 185 

now gathered over the countenance of tlie expedi- 
tion, about as dark as those over the face of the 
heavens ; and each one manifested himself accord- 
ing to his temper under adversities — defied or be- 
moaned his fate. A great disputation was imme- 
diately entered upon, as to where the north was. 
Even Powell and Conway difi'ered entirely. Peter 
vehemently urged it was here — Triptolemus con- 
tended it was there. The Signor tried to make it 
out by the dark side of the trees ; but, in the gloom 
of the day, they were on all sides dark. Galen 
twisted his neck to no purpose, looking up for a 
light spot in the clouds by which to place the sun. 
The Prior said and did nothing, but looked as if he 
had come to the conclusion that the Canaan had no 
north. 

"There is nothing clear about the whole mat- 
ter," exclaimed Peter, gloomily, " but that we are 
lost!" 

"That's clear as preaching," answered Trip. 

" What an infernal idiot I was to get into this 
scrape !" continued Peter. " A man with a family 
■ — living in ease and comfort, enjoying the society 
of my friends — I may say surrounded by every- 
thing a man ought to desire — in fact, more too! — 
But such is man! — to come out here into this 
crooked wilderness, where there is nothing straight 
— no paths — nothing leadiiig anywhere! Lost — 
yes, undoubtedly lost, and with a fine chance of 



186 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

being either starved or walked to death — both, I 
dare say !" 

" Or eaten by the bears," said Trip. 

" Any bear that attempts that game on me," re- 
joined Peter, "would play into my hand." 

" Gentlemen," observed the Signor, " there is 
nothing gained by staying here, that I can see. I 
j)ropose tliat Conway take the lead, as he and 
Powell differ about the course. Let's try his luck, 
and see what will come of it." 

" Agreed," said Powell ; " let Conaway try it : but 
you are going the wrong way. Here, more to the 
left, I say, we will come upon the horses. Here's 
the north, and here's northeast — and northeast is 
our course." 

"What do you judge from, Powell? The skies 
are all clouds; you can't judge by the moss, and 
the weather-stains on the trees — for tliey are on all 
sides alike." 

"Well, I can't say rightly what I judge from. 
But there is something in the shape of the hills — 
the way they slope — and the looks of the country, 
that makes me say here's the northeast ; and I be- 
lieve in an hour or two we would come right down 
on our horses." 

Powell was evidently very much mortified at his 
having walked us round in a circle for the last two 
hours. But he accounted for it satisfactorily enough, 
by reminding us that in sitting down here before, 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 187 

and shifting our position under the trees to avoid 
the rain, we had unconsciously lost sight of the 
direction we were on ; and starting off in the con- 
fusion of a disputation upon the vexed question as 
to where the sun was, we had, without considera- 
tion, taken the direction we happened to be facing 
at the time. An intelligent man, like Powell, takes 
great pride in his knowledge of the woods ; and in 
proportion as he estimated his knowledge highly, he 
was now greatly mortified, as was evident from his 
whole bearing. The doctor, seeing this, from the 
kindness of his nature stepped in to the mortified 
forester's relief. 

" JSTever mind it, Powell," he observed, blandly. 
"It don't at all impugn your woodcraft in our opin- 
ion. Daniel Boone himself would get lost out here 
in a cloudy day. But let Conway try it for a while, 
as proposed. It's just trying his luck, you know — 
which may fail too." 

"I would rather Powell should keep the lead — 
he knows more about the woods than I do," said 
old Conway, a little infirm of purpose. 

" Ko, I have missed it once," observed Powell, 
"and it's but fair that Conway should try it." 

" It's no such mighty matter," said Trip ; " I could 
do it myself!" 

" I'll bet," answered Peter, " that if we were to 
follow you, we wouldn't get five miles away from 
where we are now standing in the next three weeks !" 



188 THE BLACKWATEE CHRONICLE. 

" Your hcck^ Trip," said the Master, " couldn't 
bring us out, by possibility, anywhere else than at 
the exact opposite point to that we are aiming for !" 

" Ugh — uh !" replied Trip. " If you follow ine, 
I'll hit the Fairfax stone in an hour. I feel, and 
have felt, all the morning, somehow, as if it ought 
to be over here. And you all know, gentlemen, 
I've a sort of lean that way." 

" That's exactly my opinion," said Powell. " I 
would be willing to bet on it, that it is just in the 
direction Mr. Todd says. That's the course I've 
been arguing for with Conaway." 

" Come, give up the point, Powell." 

" Blast the crooked wilderness, that I should have 
got turned around so ! I a'n't worth anything any 
longer!" 

" IS^ever mind it, Powell. Man is prone to error." 

" That's what old Davy Waddell says," observed 
the doctor. 

" How was that, Adolphus ?" 

" You all know Davy, gentlemen — " 

"Yes — a very shrewd, clear-headed man." 

" And a very original one." 

"The state hasn't a more remarkable one in its 
limits." 

"That's a risky remark — there are so many of 
them ! But what about Davy ?" 

" Well, I'll tell you," resumed the doctor. " Some 
years ago, I was at the races down at Baltimore — 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 189 

about the time tlie Central club was in its liej-day 
— before racing liad died down in the countiy. 
Stevens's ' Black Maria' had beaten the Southern 
horse in the great race of the season. But a race 
was made by Colonel Johnson, to run 'Trifle' against 
the Nortliern mare the next day. Trifle was tlien 
young, and pretty much unknown. Trifle beat the 
race. There was a great deal of excitement about, 
and a good deal of money lost and won. After the 
race was over, I walked up to the hotel, where there 
was a great crowd, and a good deal of loud talking, 
laughing, and paying over of money, going on. In 
the midst of all this melee, Davy's voice sounded 
high above it all, and compelled attention. It seems 
that the most of the betters had staked upon Black 
Maria — and very naturally too, for she had won the 
race of the day before against one of Johnson's best 
horses — the 'Bonnets of Blue,' I believe. Davy, 
however, had bet on Trifle, and of course he won. 
He was accordingly in high spirits, and was conso- 
ling the losers by explaining to them how prone man 
was to arrar, as he called it : — 

" ' Gentlemen, I tell you, you needn't think any 
the worse of yourselves for betting on the wrong 
mare, for I wish I may never see another horserace 
if man a'n't always committing arrar in some shape 
or other. It a'n't in his nature to avoid it ! Why, 
sar, let any man — any intelligent man — any of 
you gentlemen around me — any man, sar, who 



190 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

doesn't know the geargrapliy of the country he's a ri- 
ding in, come to a place in the woods where the roads 
fork, and he's sure to take the wrong lork — he's 
sure to do it, sar ! And, gentlemen, if there's a cock- 
fight a transpiring anywhere, the most of the betters 
are sure to pick out the fowl that's whipped — I never 
knew it otherwise ! Pitch up a handful of coppers 
in the middle of a bar-room that's full of people, 
and some two or three, by chance — altogether by 
chance — will say, " Heads," but all the rest of them 
will call out, " Tails !" and when you come to pick 
up the coppers, it's heads they all are : I never knew 
it otherwise, unless thar was some cheating going 
on. And now, gentlemen-losers, I'm going to take 
the liberty of giving you a little advice — I always 
practise on it — and I don't know that I ever lost 
any money except when I've been foolhardy enough 
to go against it : and that is, always to bet against 

the majority; for I'll be d d, sar, if I ever have 

known 'em to be right, except when it was clearly 
by chance ! You see it must be so — for, seeing as 
how man is prone to arrar^ the majority of 'em must 
go wrong ; and the majority being necessarily wrong, 
whenever you want to bet your money upon a race, 
or cock-fight — at faro, or "sweat," or "double O," 
or anything at all at which gentlemen pleasure them- 
selves — find out the general opinion, and put up 
your money against it, as I did on the Yirginia mare 
on principle, and you'll double your pile ! — you may 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 191 

depend npon it, as sure as my name's David Wad- 
dle, at your service !' " 

"Well, now," said old Conway, "that Waddell 
must be considerable of a smart man ; for whenever 
I've been out in the woods, and didn't know I was 
right, I've mostly, I may say, gone wrong." 

" What's the opinion here, gentlemen," inquired 
Peter, "in regard to the northeast?" 

"That question has neither a majority nor mi- 
nority attached to it. There are no two of us who 
agree on it." 

" Allow me to say, gentlemen," observed Peter, 
" that this thing is not to be trifled with. It's a very 
serious business. Now, it strikes me that there is 
something in Davy Waddle's opinion, and that we 
ought to act upon it. Something might come out 
of it. Let every man, I say, point to where he 
thinks the north is." 

It was done, on the word ; and the fact was de- 
monstrated that the expedition entertained seven 
different opinions on the subject. Of course, it was 
impossible, in our case, to act on Waddell's theory 
of going right, and we had to give up that chance. 
One of three things, therefore, was all that was left 
to us : either to follow Powell, who had just walked 
us round for two hours in a circle ; or trust to Trip's 
lean to the Fairfax stone ; or stake our deliverance 
upon old Conway, who seemed by no means confi- 
dent in his judgment. Something, however, had 



192 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

to be done ; and, as is usually the case in sucli mat- 
ters, we adopted the wrong alternative — put Con- 
way in the lead, and went to the right, when we 
should have gone to the left, as it afterward turned 
out. 

'Now, then, Conway leading, we once more broke 
our way through the wild, striking a course that 
presently brought us to some laurel. This we skirted 
for a while, but at length found ourselves hemmed 
in by a great belt of it, spreading everywhere as far 
as the eye could see. There is always a stream of 
some size in the laurel ; and we now plunged into 
the brake to see in what direction the water flowed. 
If it ran to the right hand, both the hunters agreed 
that we would be on the waters east of the Back- 
bone, flowing into the Potomac — and would be on 
the right course ; if it ran to the left, it would then 
be cej'tain that we were still west of the Bone, on 
the waters of the Cheat — and therefore on the 
wrong course altogether. When we made our way 
to the stream, it ran to the left ; and hope now put 
off farther than ever. There was evident dismay 
upon the countenance of the expedition, and some- 
thing of a disposition manifested to revolt against 
the guides — which shows that, notwithstanding all 
the talk about man's individual advancement in this 
nineteenth century, he is, in and about, the precise 
same animal at bottom now that he was when he 
murmured at the leading of Moses and Aaron in 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 193 

the Arabian wilderness. However, be tliis as it may, 
there was evidently nothing to be gained by mingling 
our murmurs, here in the wilds of the Canaan, with 
the gentler murmurs of this unknown little stream. 
So we crossed over the laurel — which gave us about 
as much to do as we could attend to for the time — 
and, right or wrong, kept on the way we were go- 
ing ; and after about an hour's hard and rather dis- 
consolate work, we came to a halt, on the top of a 
ridge, to rest ourselves, and let Peter come up with 
"US, who by this time was farther behind than was 
deemed consistent with his safety. Presently, that 
unhappy gentleman came in, looking very much dis- 
mantled — his face red — breathing hard — and re- 
newing, for about the hundred and nineteenth time 
(according to Triptolemus's arithmetic), his proposi- 
tion to encamp. 

" Oh, this is most damnable !" exclaimed Peter. 
"What o'clock is it?" 

'^ You had better ask, ' What's the latitude V " 

''I take it," said Powell, "it is somewhere be- 
tween dinner-time and supper-time." 

" Is there anything to eat ?" asked Peter. " I'm 
suffering for food ; my strength is nearly gone !" 

" Conway, give him a raw trout out of your bas- 
ket," replied the artist. 

" Have you any bread?" inquired Peter. 

"Not a crumb." 

" Nor any meat ?" 

9 



194 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

"No meat — not a bite!" 

" Well, that settles it — we must encamp, and let 
the hunters go out and shoot a deer." 

" 'No, not so, we must get into the settlements at 
all hazards," interposed the artist. 

" If the sun would only come out, I'll insure it 
to reach the horses yet to-day," said Powell. 

"If I could have had any idea of this," rejoined 
Peter — "that I should be walked to death in this 
manner — I don't think — " 

" Don't think anything ! It's clear that all we 
have to do is to go on. We may get out somewhere. 
If we stay here, we may starve." 

At this moment, in the midst of all these doubts 
and fears of ours, and the perplexity and bewilder- 
ment of the guides, some one thought he discerned 
something like a slight lighting up of the clouds. 
This led to a very excited debate, maintained with 
great ability on all sides, whether it indicated the 
position of the sun, or might not be just as well 
caused by the wind getting up in that quarter. Af- 
ter a good deal said, however, that we will not stop 
to record here — all of which was strongly character- 
ized by the different mental and moral peculiai-ities 
of the various parties to the discussion — it was at 
length put to the vote and passed, that no man should 
henceforth say a word upon the question as to where 
the four points of the compass were, but that the 
matter should be left to the two hunters, upon w^hose 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 195 

deliberations, undisturbed by any suggestions of 
ours, the fate of the expedition should entirely de- 
pend. Powell and Conway, therefore, undisturbed 
by any confusing opinions of ours, presently came 
to a determination as to their course, and off we 
struck ao:ain through the wilderness. 

We will not encumber our narrative with a reci- 
tal of all that occurred on the march, but merely 
state, that the route we had fallen on in our bad 
luck, led us through about as rugged, as savage, 
and as difficult a wilderness, as a man could well 
get into ; that we climbed hills so steep that we 
had to pull ourselves up by clinging to anything 
we could lay hold of, and get down them as best 
we could — that we were now all the time either 
crossing mountain-tops, or clambering their sides, 
or plunging into the laurel that filled the ravines 
between; that sometimes the dead trees would 
cover the ground everywhere before us — lying six 
feet high when we would come to scale them, and 
often so decomposed that we would sink into them 
up to the waist. It was through such a wild that 
we now forced our way ; until, at length, some- 
where about five o'clock in the evening, jaded and 
much exhausted for want of food, that part of the 
expedition that was in the advance called a halt in 
fiont of some very extensive laurel just ahead, the 
look of which made it necessary, in the opinion of 
the guides, to hold a council of war. 



196 THE BLACKWATEK CHRONICLE. 

" This time we straggled in at considerable inter- 
vals — an indication of our weary plight; and each 
one, as he came in, instead of sitting down as usual, 
unstrapped his wallet, and stretched himself out at 
full lengtli on the moss, wet as it was from the rain 
of the day. Up to this time no one had entertained 
the idea, seriously, that we would not be able to 
get out of the Canaan some time or other during 
the day. But that hope was now failing us ; and 
although we had nothing to eat, it was seriously 
deliberated whether we had not better build a fire 
and prepare to pass the night where we were. But 
at this time, the clouds that had obscured the sky all 
day, broke away, and the wind rising, the sun 
presently shone out ; whereupon it was determined 
to make one more effort to get out, and if that 
failed, then to encamp, roast the few tront we had 
for a supper, and take the chances of killing a deer 
in the morning for our breakfast. 

This determination met with no favor from Peter, 
who was dead opposed to any further walking for 
the day. He urged the advantage of encamping in 
a great many points of view — but all to no avail ; 
and, finally, as a last resort, made an appeal to 
feeling. 

"Well, then, gentlemen, go on. One thing is 
certain, that I can go no further. You will have 
to leave me behind, if you can reconcile it to your 
consciences." 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 197 

"Man in a state of nature has very little of that 
commodity," said the Prior. 

" As for myself," said the Signor, " I am some- 
what at best, like the Spanish sharper, who threw 
his aside in his youth, because he was told it had a 



"You may make yourselves as merry as you 
please with my sufferings," replied Peter, with an 
air of resignation, " but it's utterly impossible for 
me to go any further. And what is it all for? We 
are wandering about here, nobody knows where. 
Gentlemen, it's the height of nonsense. Let's en- 
camp and eat something." 

" Hadn't we, Peter, much better keep on a little 
longer — we might, by chance, get to the horses." 

" If we stay here we will never get out," said the 
Signor. " Powell, move on." 

" Stop awhile," said Peter, " let me ask a question 
of Powell. Powell, have you any distinct idea at 
all of where we are ?" 

" Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Botecote, I have 
not. All the water we have come upon yet, has 
been running the wrong way to me. If I could see 
some water running to the right of our course, I 
should feel satisfied." 

" You really give it up then, Powell ?" 

" JSTo, I don't say I give it up — I only say I don't 
know where we are." 

" What do you say, Conway ?" 



198 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

"I'd give something to be back on the Black- 
water where we started from." 

"There it is — I knew it would be so from the 
beginning. We don't know where we are. These 
hunters haven't the slightest idea themselves. It's 
all abominable ! It is perfectly intolerable ! It's 
insufferable ! It's" — 

" It's bad enough, that's true," said one. 

" And likely to be worse," said another. 

" My heels are rubbed raw," said Galen, " and 
will be, I expect, rawer before we get out." 

"Towells was right about the Canaan," said 
Trip. 

" Towers," said the Signer ; " Towers, Trip, don't 
call him Towells. You only add to Peter's aggra- 
vations." 

" He's beyond such niceties now," said the Mas- 
ter. " It is only when the body's at ease that the 
mind is delicate." 

" May Towers roast for this !" said Peter. " It's 
as much owing to him, as anybody else, that I came 
out into this desert. He took very good care, how- 
ever, not to come himself!" 

The expedition, by this time, was well under way 
again, skirting the edge of the laurel that lay wide 
to the left of us, while the mountain, on whose 
slopes we walked, rose high and bold above us, on 
the riglit. Pursuing a course along the rugged and 
broken side of the mountain, it was not long before 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 201 

to a degree of indomitable energy, perseverance, 
skill, fortitude, and endurance, and so forth, et 
cetera, that has never been matched. It is not to 
be denied, that history contains many instances of 
desperate achievement, bearing some resemblance 
to this deliverance of ours — there is the well- 
known case of Moses in the bullrushes — but what 
are bullrushes, I would like to know, to this all-fired 
laurel ? Grass ! nothing but grass ! Napoleon got 
out from the forests of Russia — but how? With 
all his grand army gone ! We stand here, gentle- 
men, with our ranks yet unthinned by the loss of a 
single follower. It is true, gentlemen, I was a little 
disconsolate at one time ; but then I recalled to 
mind the case of Marius sitting among the ruins of 
Carthage, in the very acme of his adversity ; and 
remembering that he was a second time proconsul, 
my soul rose up within me, and I would have suffer- 
ed the last extremity of martyrdom in the shape of 
locomotion, before I would have given up. The 
case, also, of Moses and the children of Israel oc- 
curred to me ; and I determined it should not be 
said by posterity that the children could get into 
their Canaan, while I wasn't able to get out of ours. 
I will even, gentlemen, go so far as to say, that at 
that crisis, when I thought we had found out the per- 
petual motion, from the rounds we were describing 
in the forest — I will candidly admit it, out of my 
regard for the truth of history — that just then, 1 

9* 



202 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

verily believe I would have submitted to the opera- 
tion of being eaten by a bear, without feeling any 
indignation at the audacious effrontery of such a 
procedure. But Allah Akbar! — God is. Great! — 
and the bounties of Providence are new every day ! 

— and here I am — you may say in spite of my teeth 

— and, indeed, you may say of all the other parts of 
my body. When I look back upon my tracks, and 
think of the laurel, and the interminable mountains 

— and such mountains, and the piles of rotten hem- 
locks and firs that I have been stuck in — and that I 
have been at it now from sunrise, without any inter- 
mission, up to this time, six o'clock in the evening — 
thirteen mortal hours — and all without anything 
to eat, may the devil take my lights 1 as Towers 
says, if I am not utterly lost in astonishment at 
those powers, hitherto unrevealed to me, that have 
stood me out. It's glory enough for any one man's 
lifetime : and I tell you all now, if ever you catch 
me in the Canaan again, unless it is a horseback, 
and with plenty of provisions, my name's not Peter 
Botecote. By the way, men, how far off are the 
horses from here? That's a matter to be seen to 
at once." 

'' Well, I reckon, the glade where we left them, 
must be some six miles above us," said old Conway. 

" At least that," said Powell. 

Peter fell again at this information. But upon 
Conway's saying that it was not more than some 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 203 

three miles to his house througli the woods, and by 
a path all the way, it was determined to let the 
horses stay where they were, and go on at once 
afoot. 

So we moved on, crossed the Potomac, and struck 
into a good path winding through the forest. We 
went along at a rapid walk ; and even at this fast 
gait were urged to go faster by Peter, now dashing 
along with a free swing up among the foremost of 
the party. Indeed, you would suppose from the 
energy of his movements, that he was walking for 
a wager — so reanimated was he at having accom- 
plished the exodus of the Canaan. 

At this rate we walked about an hour — and had 
yet some two or three miles to go. It was evident 
that Conway was tolling iis along. But on we 
went, getting down from a pace that was four miles 
an hour, to one that was only two ; and at length 
crossing Laurel run (one of the tributaries of the 
Potomac) w^e ascended the long hill beyond, at 
scarcely the rate of a mile an hour. 

The lighter part of the expedition rose this hill at 
evident advantage, and sat down on a log to rest. 
But weight was now beginning to tell effectually ; 
and the heavy forces advanced at a very slow and 
labored pace, each one wheeling in upon the log as 
he came up, except Butcut, who passed on without 
stopping, or casting even so much as a look to 
where we sat. 



204 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

''Don't you mean to stop and blow, But?" 
" Blow the devil ! I'm blowing all I can as it is !" 
"You had better stop — we have two miles yet 
to go." 

And upon this announcement Peter wheeled to, 
and came down heavily upon a stump near him, 
without saying a word. 

It was evident now that the expedition was very 
nearly on its last legs, l^othing but that fortitude 
of endurance, indomitable energy, &c., which Mr. 
Botecote had alluded to down on the banks of the 
Potomac, had kept it moving up to this time. One 
was a little faint — another was dizzy about the 
brain — a third had a film over his eyes — Trip said 
that there was a humming, and buzzing, and singing 
going on in his ears, very much like the running 
down of his watch when the main-spring breaks : 
every one had something out of gear — even Powell 
and Conway were overtasked ; and it is certain that 
nothing but " the unconquerable free-will" of some 
of us, and " the undying hope" of all, to get into 
Conway's, kept us from remaining out all night 
starved in the woods, unless, maybe, it was a small 
flask of brandy, containing about a gill, which the 
Prior, with a wise forethought, had brought along 
with him as physic for his body in case he should 
be bit by a rattlesnake. 

The flask was now produced, and each man swal- 
lowed a mouthful of it raw. Thus temporarily 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 205 

propped up, we once more set forward on tlie 
march ; and straggling wearily along the now broad 
and beaten path, with long intervals between — al- 
most utterly exhausted, we at length, late in the 
twilight, defiled from the woods into the open fields 
of the Conway possession (held by squatter tenure), 
about as dilapidated a set of adventurers as ever 
wandered a forest — ragged, tattered, and torn, and 
all forlorn — starved, haggard, barely able to drag 
ourselves up the gentle slope that led to the cabin- 
door — the very contrast of the bright, buoyant, 
elate, trimly-arrayed, and may we not say it, rather 
stylish-looking band, that only four days ago had 
witched the world of these regions with our noble 
footman ship. 

I — the writer of this chronicle — with every fac- 
ulty of my nature, as I supposed, obliterated by fa- 
tigue and starvation — with my head bent down to 
my breast — entered the threshold of the old forest- 
er's door, and, putting out my hand, took hold of 
what I supposed was the hand (extended to me in 
welcome) of the mistress of the household ; but it 
was not hers — it was the soft hand, freshly washed, 
of the old man's lithe daughter of seventeen sum- 
mers ; and I take it upon me to say that, broken 
down as I was, the touch thrilled every fibre of my 
heart — and I raised my head and looked into the 
face of the seventeen summers before me — beheld 
the red of her cheek and the beam of her young 



206 



THE BLACKWATEB CHRONICLE. 



eye — and for the moment I thouglit she might be 
Donna Maria Gloriana of Spain, or the queen of 
Sheba in all her glory! — such and so great is the 
power of " woman divine" over a man who has been 
associating for some time with nothing but men and 
bears in a wilderness. Holding Gloriana Conway's 
hand as daintily as if it had been the queen of 
Spain's, my soul revived within me. But when I 
let it go, I relapsed straightway into my former 
nothingness. It was but like the swallow of brandy, 
a temporary stimulant, and nothing more ; so I 




acted upon a sounder philosophy, and dipped in 
with the rest into the in sides of a monstrous j)ump- 
kin-pie, that was already more than half-devoured. 



HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE CANAAN. 207 

"I thank Heaven," said Peter, scarcely intelligi- 
ble, owing to an over-large mouthful, " for this de- 
liverance !" And as his heart revived within him, 
he grew classical, and repeated with much unction 
the happy words which Gil Bias wrote over his door 
at Lirias : — 

" Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete, 
Sat me lusistis, nunc ludite alios." 

" Gentlemen," said the artist, speaking too out of 
the fullness of his mouth as well as of his heart — 
" the knight of the gloomy countenance brightens. 
He has scarcely yet set his foot within the precincts 
of civilization, and the immortal creation of Le Sage 
rises unbidden to his thoughts !" 

" It is clear But was never intended for savage 
life," observed one. 

" He hasn't made a joke since we've been out," 
said Trip. " The first time he gave any symptoms 
of being himself again, was when he made that 
speech — back on the banks of the Potomac — about 
Marius and Moses." 

"He's lucky he wasn't born an Indian," rejoined 
the artist. 

And to these, and many other such remarks, Mr. 
Peter Botecote made once in a while a reply ; but 
what he said must for ever remain lost to the world 
— for his mouth was so full, that nobody could pos- 
sibly make it out. 

After a satisfactory supper, which in due course 



208 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

of time was prepared for us by the family of the 
hospitable old hunter — consisting of fried bacon 
and eggs, broiled venison, some of the trout Conway 
had brought home, a large coffee-pot of strong coffee, 
bread, milk, butter, honey, maple-sirup, and various 
comfits and preserves — which we mention here to 
show how well stocked is the home of a deer-hunter 
in the AUeganies — we stretched ourselves out side 
by side, on some pallets spread down on the floor 
before the fire, and in a few moments were all dead 
asleep. 

And so ended the day we got out of the Canaan. 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 209 



CHAPTEE XIY. 



We remained at Conway's next day until about 
one or two o'clock. Our horses had broken out of 
the dale on the Potomac, and had returned to Tow- 
ers's the day after we abandoned them. They had 
been put back, and again had left — which escapes, 
injustice to the rhododendron fencing, we must re- 
cord it, were effected through the barricade at the 
point of entrance into the dale ; in other words, 
they had escaped by the way they got in : we had 
not secured the bars effectually. They had been 
Seen passing by Conway's only a few hours before 
we arrived. Supposing Towers would send them 
back this morning, we waited, keeping a lookout 
from the house. 

In the meantime, Conway's two boys were de- 
spatched to the dale, six miles off, for our saddles 
and bridles, &c. ; and with instructions to go up the 
mountain beyond, to the Elk-lick, and get Mr. Bote- 
cote's Yankee blanket — which was left there hung 
upon a tree, as the reader will remember, when 
Peter made his first proposition to turn back. 

It was a beautiful morning of the early summer, 



210 THE BLACK WATER CHRONICLE. 

and we lay idly about on the grass, basking in the 
sunshine, and commenting upon many things pleas- 
antly enough. As the conversation referred chiefly 
to our expedition and its incidents, we will relate 
some of it before we leave. 

Mr. Botecote was restored to all his natural vi- 
vacity and pleasantry. His eye twinkled, and his 
countenance was bright. He was again in his 
pi'oper element of civilization. 

" Well, gentlemen," he observed, " I've been 
thinking about it, and it is my opinion that there 
is no life like this of the wilderness, after all. It's 
astonishing, Galen, what an amount of hardship a 
man can endure! 'No man can tell what he is un- 
til he is tried. Powell, do you think that tract of 
land can be bought ?" 

" ISTo doubt of it, Mr. Botecote." 

" How many acres are there ?" 

" Five thousand." 

" And for how much ?" 

" Sixty cents an acre." 

"That's three thousand dollars. I'll buy it." 

" It's the finest tract in all the country ; there's 
not fifty acres of bad land in the whole of it, and it's 
all finely watered," answered Powell, encouraging 
the purchase. 

" I'll join you in the purchase, Peter," said Adol- 
phus. " As soon as we get back to Winston, we'll 
write, right away, and secure it." 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 211 

" I'm afraid we've lost Peter and Adolphus, '' ob- 
served the artist. 

"Oh, that's certain — indeed, I doubt whether 
they will go back with us at all," replied the Master. 

" 1 can't imagine a more happy life," said Peter, 
" than a man could live out here — here in the midst 
of these grand mountains, these noble trees, these 
perfect waters ; the wilderness close at hand for his 
recreation, with its innumerable deer and trout; 
the railroad only some ten or twenty miles off, and 
which you can reach by a road through beautiful 
glades all the way — that is, after you have got 
over the Backbone. Adolphus, we must build 
ourselves a lodge upon our estate. I shall con- 
struct something after the old Saxon architecture, 
that shall look baronial — have great, huge fire- 
places, to burn whole loads of wood in at a time ; 
— and a big hall, hung round with trophies of the 
chase " 

And here Galen broke in : " Yes — and when our 
friends come up, we will summon Powell and Con- 
way, and all the other foresters, and make inroads 
into the wilderness — encamp out there, and iish, 
and shoot the deer." 

"Deer! — Nothing so small as that — bears and 
panthers — elk at the least," said the artist. 

" I would have the Canaan as a park," said the 
Master, " and cut. But, drives through the gorges 
and defiles of the mountains; bridge the laurel, and 



212 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

have a tower at the falls of the Blackwater, with a 
good cook in it — such a one as Peter would recom- 
mend — and lounges and cushions of the softest — 
with a harp or so, and two or three grand pianos, 
to play swelling themes in accord with the sublime 
music of the torrent roaring down the Alleganies !" 

" I am not building castles, gentlemen," observed 
Peter with earnestness ; " far from it, gentlemen ! 
ITever was more in earnest in my life. Why, that 
live thousand acres, and the others that I would buy 
in the course of time, would be an immense inher- 
itance to my children ! Why, sir, in tw^enty years, 
the whole of it would be worth fifty dollars an acre 
at the least. The railroad, when finished, will open 
out the country to market at once : it will make 
tidewater at your door ! As fine a country as our 
Yalley is, I would infinitely rather live here!" 

Mr. Peter Botecote, it will be perceived, was a 
very altered man in his feelings this morning. He 
was no longer the knight of the gloomy counte- 
nance. But rowdy and ragamufiin as he seemed 
externally to the eye, the soul of Philip Sydney was 
in him, or any highly imaginative, poetic, and sub- 
limated gentleman; and Hope spread before him 
all her illusions — 

" Smiled, enchanted, and waved her golden hair" — 

and all-happy visions of the wilderness didn't spare 
his aching sight. But, we are not deriding Peter. 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 213 

TJucli of that gentleman's enthusiasm has substantial 
foundation. The raih-oad must put this noble coun- 
try alongside of the sea; and the forest must be 
cleared away for the plough, and the water-power 
everywhere must be used, and the coal dug out of 
tlie earth, and the ores, the gypsum, the salt, and 
the lumber, turned into wealth; and therefore the 
land (such land ! that can be bought now from sixty 
cents to a dollar an acre !) must be worth fifty dol- 
lars — and that at no very distant day. But all this 
is to be done by the hardy enterprise of men in 
whose souls poetry and imagination, are not pre- 
dominant — by men with necessity at their elbow, 
who are resolute upon acquisition, and w^ho have 
been trained to the rougher realities of life ; not by 
a set of daintily-nurtured gentlemen, to whom life 
has been but little else than an agreeable pastime, 
whose disquiet has been only the loss of some pleas- 
urable gratification, whose greatest suffering has con- 
sisted in being lost for a day in the wilds of the Ca- 
naan — a wijderness — but a wilderness of plenty of 
deer and trout. 

" Peter is delightful to me this morning, gentle- 
men ; I never saw a happier countenance," observed 
the Master. 

" Perfectly delicious," responded the artist ; " he's 
blossoming like the rose in the wilderness: — 

" *0 my love is like the red, red rose, 
That's newly blown in June!'" 



214 THE BLACKWATEK CHEONICLE. 

"He is happy, sure enough," said Trip. "And 
he looks natural to me to-day out of his eyes. But 
yesterday, sitting down on tliat soft, mushy log, I 
don't thiiik his nearest neighbor would have recog- 
nised him." 

"There was a grand gloom on him just about 
that time : he looked like the pictures of Napoleon 
on the rock at St. Helena." 

" I never had any idea of Philips's grand^ gloomy^ 
and pecidiar — a sceptred hermit^ &c., before. I 
see now, however, distinctly the sort of picture of 
a man the Irish oratoi* must have had in his mind." 

" Signor, you ought to have sketched liim." 

" I have him in my mind's eye, gentlemen : Ma- 
rius, sitting among the ruins of Carthage, won't be 
able to hold a candle to him, after I shall have 
limned him !" 

" Trip, you needn't say anything," retorted Peter ; 
" for when the hunters admitted w^e were lost, your 
eyes grew very big." 

" Well, it did look a little scary to me about that 
time," answered Trip, "particularly when I saw the 
Signor there hunting about for the snails, and put- 
ting them in his pockets. You see, I thought of 
Towell's story about the lost man out there. And, 
now I think of it, I shall retract to Connells my dis- 
belief as soon as I get a sight of him." 

" Call him Towers^ if you please, my dear fellow, 
Trip ; just put your mind upon it — Toioers — Tow- 
ers ! It would be some amends to him." 



THE EETUKN TO WINSTON. 215 

And liere Peter frankly acknowledged the fact 
that lie was very much broken down and a good 
deal disconsolate at times ; but that, notwithstand- 
ing, the pleasure of the expedition was very great 
to him. 

" And, gentlemen," he continued, with much en- 
thusiasm, " I'll go in with you again, at any time 
you may choose to name, j^rovided only you let me 
have about a month's notice, so that I may put my- 
self in training beforehand. Indeed, I think, the 
next time, I'll take it afoot'from home. They have 
got to making these wagons now to run so easy, that 
a man who uses them must lose eventually all his 
walking powers — that fine elasticity of mnscle — 
that wiry agility — that free, unimpeded respiration 
— that everything that is native and to the manner 
born, I may say, to man, as my experience of the 
wilderness satisfies me — that — in fine, gentlemen, 
I shall foot it, I think, for the rest of my days !" 

" Right, Peter — down with the wagon !" said the 
artist. 

" And up with the saddle-horse again !" replied 
the Master. " I will join with you in any reforma- 
tion of the times that has for its object the ascen- 
dency of the saddle. Bring the republic back to 
that, and I shall have hopes of it. This foot-work 
is sufficiently cared for over the land ; any fellow 
that has two legs can get at it. But how many of 
our people are there of this generation who can ride 



216 THE BLACKWATER CHEONICLE. 

a real liorse ! Cavalry are as essential to onr na- 
tional greatness as infantry. While many go afoot, 
it is essential that some at least should go a-horse- 
back. Where would the nation be to-day, if it had 
not been for that race of men who were trained in 
the saddle — those men of ' earth's first blood' — the 
gentlemen who rode the blooded horses that were 
descended from the loins of the Godolphin Arabian ? 
Don't tell me, Peter, that these men, heroic as they 
would have been anyhow, had not some elevation 
given to their heroism by the nobilities of nature 
begotten of tlie saddle. Imagine Washington with- 
out his charger! Think of him, if you can, afoot! 
Or can the idea of him even enter into your brain, 
as a man driving a fast trotter, at about two twenty, 
over a plank-road ! Could Alexander of Macedon 
ever have been Alexander the Great, had he not 
been tlie Alexander who could ride Bucephalus? 
Shakspeare understood all about it when he made 
Richard rage about Bos worth-field for a horse .^" — 

" 'A horse ! a horse ! mj kingdom for a horse !' " — 

here ranted Peter, breaking in upon the Master; 
and, throwing himself into a very theatrical position, 
he went on, and enacted the whole of the battle-scene 
— out-raging Kean or Booth even — to the great 
wonderment of Powell and Conway, and the whole 
of Conway's family, who came out bewildered to 
the performance. At length, having got through 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 217 

tlie play, Peter went on to learn from liis two for- 
esters the expense of clearing the timber from his 
proposed estate ; — which information was, when 
summed np and digested, in and about as follows : 

A good day-laboror would belt an acre a day ; 
and he could be hired for fifty cents a day. One 
man, therefore, in a hundred days, would belt or 
deaden one hundred acres. Ten men, in that time, 
would belt a thousand acres, and at a cost of five 
hundred dollars. A thousand acres of the forest 
then, could be easily deadened by the next spring. 
As soon as this is done, the ground being freed from 
the tax made upon it by the growth of the trees, 
and the sun let in, it would, in the first season, 
grow up in timothy, the spontaneous growth of 
these wilds. This thousand acres in that condition 
would graze, the first year, some five hundred head 
of cattle, which could be had at a dollar a head for 
the season. The estate would yield, then, fur the 
first year, five hundred dollars. The next year, the 
same thousand acres would graze a thousand head 
of cattle — that is a thousand dollars it would yield 
the second year. The third year you could harrow 
over the ground, sow some grass-seed additional, 
maybe, in places, and go to making hay for winter 
use. This year you could buy young cattle at 
eight and ten dollars a piece, and having the hay to 
keep them over winter, sell them the next year at 
eighteen or twenty dollars a head. Some two hun- 
10 



218 THE BLACKWATER CHKONICLE. 

dred acres of the thousand being kept for hay, you 
could cut from them at least two tons to the acre. 
A ton of hay is good allowance for the support of a 
steer through the winter. Therefore you could 
keep some four hundred head over the winter ; four 
hundred would be worth seven or eight thousand 
dollars gross — equal to some three or foui- thousand 
dollars clear. The fourth year the roots of the trees 
would be all dead, and your land fit for cultivation 
— for raising wdieat, rye, oats, potatoes, or whatever 
else the climate and soil would allow ; and by this 
time the land kept in timothy would grow from 
three to 'Q.ve tons of hay to the acre. 

From this digest of tlie information communi- 
cated by Powell, the reader will perceive that the 
speculation will be a grand one in a money point 
of view ; and Peter and Adolphus were already, in 
their mind's eye, great cattle-raisers, w^ith numerous 
herdsmen, and almost innumerable bullocks over 
their vast possessions — say some fifty thousand 
acres apiece — here on the slopes and lawns of tlie 
Backbone ; and their houses were filled, during 
the summer months, with gentlemen and ladies, 
who hunted and rode, fished, eat the trout, the 
broils, and roasts and pastries of the deer, with 
bear's meat, and panther or wild-cat collops — 
grew fat and defied the world below, in the pas- 
times of the wilderness — then a wilderness made 
easy of ingress and egress by fine graded roftds, cut 



THE RETURN TO WINSTOX. 219 

out by the great proprietors, Peter and Galen-— 
whose two castles of old Saxon arcliitecture, built 
on either slope of the mountain, would enable the 
Backbone to frown down on ther Potomac on the 
one side, on the Blackwater on the other, as — 

"The castled erag of Drakenfels 
Frown's o'er the wide and winding Rhine." 

In the meantime, while all this future was enter- 
ing deep into the hearts of the two lords paramount 
of these regions — the duke of Canaan, and the 
baron of the Backbone — Andante and the Master 
were stretched out upon the grass, a little distance 
off, commenting upon the scene around them. 

"Did you ever see a more perfectly ruffian- 
looking couple of fellows in your life, than those 
two great landholders yonder." 

"They put me in mind of the vagabond banditti 
that used to infest the stage in Fra Diavolo." 

"I don't think you look any better, Guy !" 

" jS^or I, you, Signor ! If I were to meet you 
alone on the highway, I would give you a very 
wide berth. I don't think I have ever seen in 
painting, or read of in description, a more unmiti- 
gated ruffian than you look!" 

" Trip, sprawled out yonder, comes up to my idea 
of a red republican crippled in the leg at a barri- 
cade." 

" I can understand very w^ell, why we should 
look like a set of vagabonds who would steal sheep. 



220 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

and pigs, and ponltry ; but that is not it. There is a 
look about us of a set of men who would rob, and 
murder, bui-n, plunder and ravage a whole country. 
There is no such look about Pow^ell and Conway." 

" I imderstand it this way," said Andante, " I 
think it quite likely, that degrade us from our rank 
as gentlemen — take away all the restraints of civili- 
zation from us — in other w^ords, put us down on 
the Spanish main, and we would discover some 
qualities that would be considered right respectable 
among pirates." 

" What ! do you think that of But !" 

" E'o, I except him. If he was to embark in life 
on the Spanish main, I think he would be taken and 
hung." 

Here Mr. Butcut, hearing something about his 
being captured and hung, the visioned bliss, and 
power, and dominion over great estates, &c., &c., 
whicli filled and thrilled his brain all the morning, 
were all obliterated from his mind by the unhappy 
idea; and turning his thoughts altogether away 
from the Blackwater, he entered into a very earnest 
maintenance of the opinion, that he would make as 
good a pirate as any gentleman present. 

"In fact, gentlemen," he said, concluding his 
defence of himself, "I believe, barring, alw^ays, the 
walking and starving, I would be as efficient a man 
as any of you, upon any marauding expedition, 
whether bv sea or land." 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 221 

"Feed him enough, and carry him — and I be- 
lieve so too," said Trip. 

After this very just remark of Triptolemus's, 
which was assented to on all hands, our horses 
came in sight, emerging from the woods ; and we 
began preparations for our departure. 

Having paid all expenses at the Hotel Conway, 
handsomely — shaken hands kindly with all the 
family (amounting to some eight or ten, big and 
little), especially taking care not to forget the oldest 
daughter of the old forester, who had a soft hand 
and a kindling eye, and was a very modest, and 
very pretty maiden of some seventeen summers, 
we turned our steps Towers-ward ; and half of us 
a-foot, and half a-horse, we defiled into the forest, 
presenting to the eye a very good picture of the 
vagabond picturesque in scenery. As we went out 
we might have passed well enough for the nobler 
order of outlaws — such as Eobin Hood, and Little 
John, and Will Scarlet; and Butcut would have 
done for the jolly friar — but now, all tattered and 
torn, the glory of our trim array all gone — our 
plumage drooping, and general aspect beggarly, 
we more resembled a band of the inferior banditti 
who infest the neighborhood of pig-pens and poultry 
yards. Still we were picturesque of aspect; and 
as we followed the winding horsepath, up the hill- 
sides and down the steeps — now through the little 
streams that made their way to the Potomac — into 



222 THE BLACKWATER CHRONICLE. 

the dells, and throiigli tliem, and up out of them 
again, until we reached the cone of the Backbone ; 
and so, on and along it, until we came out into the 
northwestern highway — there were many points of 
view in which an artist could have made a picture 
of our march, worthy of being hung up anywhere 
in the halls and bowers of our land. Indeed, the 
Signor says, that he has it now in his mind's eye, 
and that some day, when his genius is sufficiently 
inspired, he will render the expedition as memorable 
as that of Xenophon, by putting it on canvass as it 
wound its way out dismantled through the romantic 
scenery of the Backbone ; choosing this one of its 
many aspects, by which to perpetuate its remem- 
brance, because, as there is dignity in sufferings 
endured, its great toils and hardships will be im- 
pressed more fully upon the mind, by the tatterde- 
mallion aspect that so thoroughly belonged to it, as 
it approached its end. 

After reaching the highway we have nothing 
more to record, except that the travellers along the 
road, in every instance, gave us the track by shying 
off to the right or the left, out of our way ; and that 
they returned our salutation with a glad and sub- 
servient courtesy ; which shows that the people 
who travel these regions, are either very civil in 
their manners, or that they took us for a band of 
most desperate ruffians, which, we leave the judi- 
cious reader to determine. Thus, in full and un- 



THE RETURN TO WINSTON. 



223 



disputed possession of the riglit of way to the wliole 
or any part of the northwestern turnpike that we 
cliose to take, we at length, at about five o'clock in 
the afternoon of the fifth day, dismounted atTowers's 
gate, all alive and well — restored by Heaven to the 
regions of civilization — toughened, roughened, high 
in health, strong in limb, and joyously elate with 
the achievement of our hardy enterprise; as — 

" Full of spirit as the month of May." 

though not quite so — ■ 

"Gorgeous as the sun at midsummer," 

And SO ends the adventure into the Canaan 
wilderness of Eandolph. 

Here, also, ends this Black water Chronicle. 




